Galaxy v03n05 (1952 02)

Galaxy

SCIENCE FICTION

FEBRUARY !952
354

ANC

r»rr THE POWER THAT CAN GET YOU
V*f C * ANYTHING IN LIFE YOU WANT!

for 10 Days {

Whether you want an increased income, a new home,
a fair union contract, a happier marriage, or
simply a good night’s sleep, here is a remarkable method
for turning your desires into REALITIES:

THE MAGIC OF BELIEVING

(The Science of Setting Your Goal — and then Reaching It)
by Claude M. Bristol, writer, lawyer, lecturer

>ook shows you how to put your inner wind
to utilize the power of your subconscious
mind to help you overcome obstacles and succeed in whatever
you want to accomplish.

is the secret of what women call intuition — religious leaders
call revelation —gamblers call hunch — top executives call person. ! magnet ism. "The
Magic of Believing” shows you:

• How you can win success by working less hard than you do now.

• How belief makes things happen.

• How to get what you want easily through a process of making mental pictures.

• How to use "the law of suggestion" to step up your effectiveness in every-
thing you do.

• How to let your imagination find the ways and means of pushing obstacles
aside for you.

• How "the mirror technique” will release your subconscious.

• How to project your thoughts and turn them into achievements.

You can put this powerful force to work for you at once. In just 10 days you will bruin to ste
hou< this remarkable method can change your entire life! It will reveal to you what stefs to take;
what decisions to make; who to see; what to say; when and how. "The Magic of Believing" can
enable YOU to turn ideas into riches, dreams into reality; failure into success.

READ THIS REMARKABLE BOOK 10 DAYS FREE
See for yourself — without risk or obligation— how ‘‘The Magic
of Believing” reveals the practical way to get more of everything
you want out of life. Mail coupon below.

FREE EXAMINATION COUPON

PRENTICE-HALL. Inc.. Dept. M-GAL-352
70 Fifth Avenue. New York II, N. Y.

Without obligation, send me a copy of “THE MAGIC OF BE- i
LIEVING.” by Claude M. Bristol, for 10 DAYS’ FEBE TRIAL. I
At the end of 10 days I will either return the book and owe I
nothing — or keep it and send only $1.00 plus a few pennies for J
postage and packing, and then $ 1.00 a month until the lew price |
of only $3.03 Is paid.

City Zone State ■

SAVE. Send $3.95 WITH THIS COUPON, and we will pay ship- |
ping charges. Same return privilege — your money back if not ■
completely satisfied.

"I got a job I have been
wanting and trying to get
over a year.” — D. M. Eade,
Englewood, Calif.

“An exceedingly practical
analysis of the technique of
mental power ... a guide-
book to success." — Mrs. R.
Bondurant, Portland, Ore.

"This book is magic! Star-
tling and instantaneous re-
sults seem to follow every
chapter. Truly one of the
best investments I have ever
made." — Mrs. J. F. Olsen,
Duluth, Minn.

gauxy

SCIENCE FICTION

Editor H. 1. GOtO

Astiilant Editor

EVELYN PAIGE

Art Director

W. I. VAN DER POEl

Production Manager

J. J. De MARIO

Advertising Manager

JOHN ANDERSON

Cover by

RICHARD POWERS
Illustrating
WHERE WERE WE?
and WHERE TO?

GALAXY Science Vidian
is published monthly by
Galaxy Publishing Corpo-
ration. Main offices: 421
Hudson Street, New York
t4, N. Y. 35c per copy.
Subscriptions : ( 12 cojp-

ies) $3.50 per year in the
United States, Canada,
Mexico, South and Cen-
tral America and U.S.
Possessions. Elsewhere
$.(.30. Entered as second-
class matter at the Post
Office. New York, N. Y.
Copyright, 1951, by Gal-
axy Publishing Corpora-
tion. Robert M. Guinn,
ptesident. All rights,
including translation, re-
served. All material sub-
mitted must be accompanied
by sell-addressed stamped
envelopes. The publisher
assumes no responsibility
for unsolicited material.
All stories printed in this
magaxine ate fiction, end
any similarity betwecrtchar-
actcrs and actual person*
is coincidental.

FEBRUARY, 1952 Vol. 3, No. 5

CONTENTS

ARTICLE SURVEY

WHERE WERE WE?

by L. Sprague de Camp 4

WHERE TO?

by Robert A. Heinlein 13

NOVELET

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 30

SHORT STORIES

DOUBLE STANDARD

by Alfred Coppel 23

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

by Fritz Leiber 64

FRESH AIR FIEND

by Kris Neville 89

BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL-lnstallmcnt 2

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

by Allred B ester 101

FEATURES

EDITOR'S PAGE

by H. L Gold 2

GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF

by Groff Conklin 84

FORECAST 87

Printed in the 0. S. A. Reg. U. S. Pst. Oft.

by the Guinn Co., Inc.

Open Letters

W RITES Howard Kam-
insky, 330 Church Ave-
nue, Woodmere, N. Y.:
*As you point out, prediction is
not the purpose of science fiction;
the fact is that human society
evolves, as does all life, by the
emergence of novel integrations,
reducible to their original com-
ponents only by backwards logic.
When conjecture is extended mil-
lenia into the future, the chance
of hitting anything even faintly
related to future reality (social
patterns, individual motivations,
cultural principles, etc.) are al-
most nothing. All science fiction
begins and ends with the present
— that is, it extrapolates present
tendencies into an environment
constructed out of present cul-
tural components, or their oppo-
sites. The insights achieved by
this method are not inconsider-
able, but let us not fool ourselves
as to what the insights see into.”
I don’t, of course, want to
spoil the point of the articles by
de Camp and Heinlein in this
issue. However, finding the sig-
nificance of science fiction is ur-
gent now, when it has suddenly
become so important to so many
people.

The interpretations, as usual,
are glib and superficial:

• Science fiction is a substitute
for those who can’t accept mystic
prophecy.

• By creating fictitious futures,
either on Earth or in space, it as-
sures readers that civilization will

survive.

• By providing ghastly cata-
clysms and police states, it con-
vinces the reader that the present
isn’t so bad, after all.

If these are factors of import-
ance, they are, it seems to me,
secondary to Mr. Kaminsky’s
thesis:

• "All science fiction begins and
ends with the present — that is,
it extrapolates present tendencies
into an environment constructed
out of present cultural compo-
nents, or their opposites.”

. If science fiction were in the
business of prediction, it should
have forecast: the release of
atomic power before the develop-
ment of rocketry; our ability
right now to wipe venereal dis-
ease and insects off the planet;
the fact that 90% of all prescrip-
tions today could not have been
filled only ten years ago; the
enormous growth of — science fic-
tion itself!

By creating fictitious futures,
it does no more than reveal the
unsuspectedly healthy optimism

2

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

that exists in our own era. In
other words, rather than escape,
whether into time or space, sci-
ence fiction explores present posi-
tive tendencies, outlooks, hopes.
I’m sure some of these will come
true, but even that doesn’t mat-
ter. What counts is that there is
a strong core of health in this
sick-seeming period of ours, and
science fiction often finds it.

Even the ghastly cataclysms
and police states that science fic-
tion creates, presumably to con-
vince the reader that the present
isn’t so bad, reveal this healthy
attitude. We are willing to ex-
plore. If we can get back, fine,
but we’ll risk one-way trips.

Science fiction is no awesome
cerebral escape machine. It tells
us about ourselves and our era.
What it tells is usually encourag-
ing — and extremely entertaining.
Isn’t that enough? Which branch
of literature offers more?

TpROM Graham B. Stone, Box
61, The Union, University of
Sydney, NSW, Australia, comes
an appeal: “We are planning a
science fiction fan convention in
Sydney, weekend of March 22nd,
1952. I can be reached at the
above address. Fans in Mel-
bourne could look up D. H. Tuck
at 13 Gordon Street, Footscray;
in Perth, R. N. Dard at 232
James Street.”

I was in the Pacific as a com-

bat engineer, and, although sci-
ence fiction wasn’t as urgent to
me as some other matters at the
time, I do know that reader*
Down Under live on science fic-
tion K-rations. I hope this men-
tion helps to end the drought.

Mr. Stone also suggests bor-
rowing certain outmoded art lay-
outs from another magazine. Hi*
suggestion happens to coincide
with several dozen angry letter*
asking whether we aren't equally
angry over the “shameless lift-
ing” of our cover design by that
same magazine.

No, we’re not angry, though we
would like to know when we may
have it back again. We are de-
veloping some other ideas; would
the magazine in question prefer
to have us send them over now,
or wait and see how they work
out after publication?

It is also amusing to note that
Prelude to Space (GALAXY Sci-
ence Fiction Novel No. 3) was
the only book reviewed in that
magazine which did not have a
publisher, and The Stars, Like
Dust (serialized in GALAXY as
T yrann) startled its reviewer be-
cause the book did not originate
there. The reviewer will go on
being startled. GALAXY, of
course, will continue to credit
periodicals in which stories first
appeared — including our un-
sportsmanlike imitator.

— II. L. COLD

S

OPEN LETTERS

WHERE WERE WE?

-

Here, sorrily, is the miserable

By

L. SPRAGUE
de CAMP

record

of science fiction's early predictions. Con-

sider it well— will our record be better?

ABO^T the middle of the 20th
/% century, Gabriel Weltstein
/ m lands in New York: a
young man from a Swiss colony
in Africa, who has come thither to
arrange the sale of his colony’s
main product, wool. As he has led
a simple bucoliG life, the big city
fascinates and awes him. The
streets are roofed over with glass,
illuminated by magnetic lights,
and jammed with pedestrians.
There is little wheeled traffic save
the carriages of the world-ruling
banker aristocracy. Overhead
weave elevated railways and air-

lines. The latter are of two kinds:
inverted monorail cars suspended
from a cable which in turn is held
up by captive balloons; and great
dirigible airships propelled by
electricity, with sails for auxiliary
motive power and lifeboats equip-
ped with parachutes. One of these
latter monsters can fly to London
in 36 hours.

When Gabriel sits down in a
restaurant, he sees a “mirror”
(like a television screen) on which
the menu appears. After making
his choice he presses numbered
buttons below the screen, and

«

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

presently the tabic opens up and
his meal rises from below. When
he presses another button a fac-
simile of the day’s newspaper ap-
pears on the screen. Although the
season is a New York summer,
the restaurant is cool. A balloon
floats overhead, tethered to the
restaurant by a double canvas
tube through which hot air is ex-
hausted to the stratosphere while
cold air is sucked down from- the
heights to replace it.

Later Gabriel meets other won-
ders: the municipal heating sys-
tem which gets hot water from
the depths of the earth; the pneu-
matic-tube network by which a
subscriber can communicate al-
most instantly with any other in
the city, the suicide houses where
people are given a painless end,
and so on. Then comes the day
when he snatches a beggar from
under the hoofs of the coach-
horses of one of the wicked bank-
ers. The beggar turns out to be a
leader of the oppressed masses,
and Gabriel is launched upon his
adventures.

An alternate time track? Not
exactly. This is the New York of
the present time as described 60
years ago by Ignatius Donnelly in
his prophetic novel Caesar’s Col-
umn, which sold over a million
copies.

The enthusiastic Ignatius
(1831-1901) should be familiar to
all science fiction addicts, for, be-

sides writing three novels in this
genre, he converted the lost At-
lantic from a speculation of schol-
ars into a popular cult. His At-
lanta: The Antediluvian World
ran through 50 editions and is
still in print. In The Great Cryp-
togram he performed the same
service for the theory that Bacon
wrote the plays of Shakespeare.

Born in Philadelphia of Irish
parents, Donnelly studied law
and migrated to Minnesota,
where he led an active political
career, becoming lieutenant-gov-
ernor at 28 and being one of the
founders of the Populist Party.

Time has played an ironical
trick on Donnelly. Many of the
political measures he advocated,
deemed dreadfully radical at the
time, are now taken for granted.
Donnelly is remembered, how-
ever, not for these sod^T' ideas
but for his promotion of the
pseudo-scientific and pscudo-
scholarly cults of Atlantism and
Baconianism!

T^ONNELLY'S three novels,
Caesar’s Colum, Dr. Huguet,
and The Golden Bottle, were pub-
lished in the early 90s. The first
deals with the uprising of the
masses against a Jewish olig-
archy. (Donnelly showed anti-
Semitic animus in this story,
which he later seemed to have
outgrown.) However, the masses
have become so degraded by their

WHERE WERE WE?

5

servitude that they kill off their
own more enlightened leaders,
and the world sinks into barbar-
ism. Dr. Huguet deals with the
Negro problem by the now-fa-
miliar device of transposing souls.
To make his hero appreciate the
•light of the American Negro,
'onnelly puts him into the body
f one. And The Golden Bottle
■i an alchemical dream wherein
he narrator is given a liquid that
turns base metal to gold. By this
power he becomes a financial
titan, and conquers and reforms
the world.

Caesar's Column is one of many
stories written between 1880 and
1910 which try to foresee the
shape of things in mid or late
20th century. We can, therefore,
for the first time in history, enjoy
the sensation of seeing ourselves
as our ancestors predicted us.

Many of these narratives are
oretty poor fiction by modern
tandards. Thus Edward Bell-
my’s Looking Backward (1888),
* prophecy of an ideal Socialist
future, which had an enormous
sale at the time, is unreadably
dull. Bellamy puts his hero to
sleep in 1887 and awakens him in
2000; after that, all that happens
is that the hero listens to inter-
minable lectures from people on
the social and economic organi-
zation of 2000. Yet even the worst
of these yams sheds light on
man’s ability to foresee hi^ future.

We often hear of such successful
prophecies: Jack London’s The
Iron Heel is cited as a forecast of
Fascism, while it is said that an
inventor was once denied a patent
on a periscope because Jules
Veme had described it in detail
in Twenty Thousand Leagues
under the Sea.

But you can’t prove prophetic
insight by citing successes alone,
for if you make enough guesses
about the future of anything you
will make some hits by luck.
What, then, of the failures? For
instance, while Donnelly in Cae-
sar’s Column foresaw air travel,
and while his pneumatic tubes
and magnetic lights have ana-
logues in the real world, he an-
ticipated nothing corresponding
to the automobile.

Many writers of futuristic nov-
els devoted much space to the
mechanical wonders of the future
world. They made some good hits
and some even remarkable misses.
In these old novels we come
across the transatlantic telephone,
the electric light, and the flash-
light in The King’s Men by Grant,
O’Reilly, Dale and Wheelwright
(1884), a lively tale despite the
extraordinary number of col-
laborators that wrote it. It is a
story of an abortive conspiracy
to restore King George V to the
throne of the British Republic.
This king is fat, foolish, and
lecherous, quite different from the

6

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

frigidly correct and conventional
man who actually occupied the
British throne under that title.
But with all their improvements
the authors still fill their 20th-
century scenes with horse-drawn
carriages and servants in pow-
dered wigs.

O R take A. D. 2000 by Lt. A.

M. Fuller. USA (1890). Lieu-
tenant Fuller, like Bellamy, puts
his hero to sleep and awakens him
in 2000, to find electric clocks
like ours, a New York subway
system not unlike the real one,
and a national newspaper printed
in many places by a “sympathetic
telegraph” — a kind of radio-tele-
typewriter. Street traffic is a
mixture of horse -buggies and
“electric drags;” underground
pneumatic railways span the con-
tinent. Air travel is by dirigible
balloon or airship, and he sends
his hero off to discover the North
Pole in one.

Similarly Frank Stockton of
lady-or-tiger fame, in The Great
Stone of Sardis (1898), had the
Pole reached by submarine, as
Sir Hubert Wilkins once tried to
do in fact. The story combines
considerable imagination and
some of Stockton’s folksy humor
with glaring logical lapses and a
feeble knowledge of the science
actually of Stockton’s own time.
Even Bellamy, who paid little
attention to technical matters,

WHERE WERE WET

credited his future Americans
with a device like Muzak.

Several authors foresaw the
wide use of aluminum — but at the
same time foresaw the wide use
of moving sidewalks and mono-
rail trains, which have not ma-
terialized. The latter were to be
of two kinds: one suspended from
an overhead rail like the real in-
terurban line at Wupperthal in
the Ruhr, Germany, which is still
running. (Recently it had a slight
mishap when a publicity man
gave a baby elephant a ride. The
beast, disliking the motion,
plunged out a door into the Wup-
per River, from which it was re-
covered indignant but unharmed.)
The other kind stood on a single
rail, being kept upright by gyro-
scopes. The streamlined Diesel-
electric train was not foreseen,
though the Diesel engine was pat-
ented in 1892 and the streamlined
train in. 1865.

In general, pre-automobile au-
thors missed the automobile com-
pletely, despite occasional men-
tion of electric bicycles and the
like ; or at least they had no con-
ception of its importance in mod-
ern economics, social custom, city
planning, road-building, and traf-
fic management. They also missed
motion pictures, and the radio
and related electrical communica-
tions (teletype, television, radar,
etc.).

In the matter of aircraft, some

7

like Grant et al., Bellamy, and
Stockton ignored them. Others
bet on the dirigible airship instead
of the airplane — a poor choice. In
their prophecies of aircraft these
authors illustrate one of my
points; that prophets are fairly
safe with generalities, but their
score gets progressively worse as
they try to become more particu-
lar. H. G. Wells and Rudyard
Kipling both tried their'hands at
detailed aeronautical prophecies
with amusing results.

In When the Sleeper Wolces
(1899) Wells awakens his “sleep-
er,” Graham, about 2100. Gra-
ham’s money has accumulated by
compound interest until he owns
most of the world, which is ruled
in his name by the “Council” of
trustees of his fortune. There are
"aeroplanes” (large, fast trans-
port aircraft with wings in tan-
dem) and “aeropiles” (small in-
sectlikc fliers for private use).
Their military potential has never
been developed because the Coun-
cil came into power and stopped
all war before they were per-
fected.

By 1907 aircraft had been re-
duced to reality, and in Well’s
The War in the Air , published
that year, Germany sets out to
conquer the United States with
a fleet of rigid airships of the type
that Count Zeppelin (who, by
the way, served as a Union officer
in the U. S. Civil War had been

developing. These craft are ac-
companied by a swarm of para-
site airplanes, or Drachtenfiieger,
suspended from them as the U.
S. Navy actually did with the
unfortunate Akron and Macon.

THIRST the Germans sink the
■*- American fleet with bombs
from the airplanes. The idea of a
cheap little airplane manned by
a cheap little aviator sinking a
huge expensive battleship appeals
to the average reader’s David-
and-Goliath prejudice had long
fascinated speculative writers.
Like many prophecies, the idea
turned out to be true, but not
the whole truth — as witness the
Battle of the Philippine Sea,
where the Japanese threw 404
carrier planes against the Amer-
ican fleet and lost them all with-
out seriously harming a single
ship.

Then Well’s airships went on
to destroy New York City and
seize strategic points about the
nation. Meanwhile Britain and
France attacked Germany and
an Asiatic Empire attacked every-
body. The Asiatics used flattened
airships (like oversize flying sau-
cers) and swarms of one-man
ornithopters. The pilots of the
latter landed and attacked their
antagonists with samurai swords
— not so funny as it sounds, for in
World War II Japanese aviators
actually wore such swords in

«

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

their cockpits, and Russian avi-
ators are now said to climb into
theirs with Cossack sabers.

Finally civilization was smash-
ed and everything simmered down
to barbarism — a favorite theme
with Wells, who never realized
that with the increase in powers
of destruction has gone an almost
as impressive increase in powers
of organization and reconstruc-
tion.

In a later and inferior novel
(too much editorializing and not
enough story). The World Set
Free (1914), Wells foresaw the
destruction of cities by atomic
bombs dropped (by hand!) from
airplanes. This time civilization
was saved from collapse when the
King of England and the French
Ambassador to the United States
got together and called a con-
ference of heads of nations to set
up a world government, as people
in real life have made two fum-
bling, half-hearted, and not very
successful efforts to do.

Kipling’s short With the Night
Mail (1909) bets on the airship
for long-range transportation, but
assumes that its lift will be
greatly increased in proportion to
its size by “Fluery’s gas.” Me-
chanically, Kipling’s aircraft have
little to do with modern airliners,
but his description of aerial traf-
fic control has a ring of reality.
And being, like Wells, a master pf
narrative technique, his tale is

WHERE WERE WE?

infinitely more readable than
those of amateurs like Bellamy.
None of these early aeronautical
prophets foresaw the nature of
aerial combat: their aircraft fight
with rifles, or by ramming, or by
grasping each other with steel
jaws?.

In the sphere of culture most
prophetic novels are weak. De-
velopments in the arts are largely
ignored. Most of them assume us
to be wearing the beards, stiff col-
lars, and street-sweeping dresses
of late- Victorian days; when they
do hazard a clothes-prophecy,
they put the men in knee-breeches
or the like. No doubt the authors
would be amazed to see an Amer-
ican street in summer with the
men hatless, coatless, and tieless,
and the women in dresses of knee
or calf length, or even (in suburbs
and resorts) in shorts and halters.
They would be horrified by a
modern bathing beach, and the
flourishing nudist movement
would reduce them to gibbering
incoherence.

HILE some prophets men-
tioned the emancipation of
women, none grasped the lengths
to which it has gone, with lady
senators and army colonels. They
never dreamed of “good” women
with makeup, smoking, swearing^
and, drinking — acts which in their
days, were restricted to what they
called “unfortunate females."

9

Their heroines shriek and swoon
at the slightest shock in true Vic-
torian tradition. None foresaw the
most important Western cultural
developments of late decades : the
grotesque prohibition episode in
America with its resulting rise in
organized crime; the decline in the
influence of religion; the rise in
the living standards of most low-
er-income groups; and the stu-
pendous rise in the rate of divorce
and remarriage.

Well, not quite. Victor Rous-
seau (Emmanuel) in his The
Messiah of the Cylinder (1917)
foresaw a world ruled by an
atheistic Socialist tyranny which
encourages such horrors as di-
vorce and birth control. However,
the m pious Christian Russians
come to the rescue of the op-
pressed Good People, destroy the
Socialist armies in a war fought
with death-rays and airplanes
with jaws, and restore the old-
fashioned virtues. That’s right —
the Russians!

Which brings us to political
prophecies. The authors tried
everything. The world may be
happy under a purified Capital-
ism, or groaning under a Capital-
ist dictatorship. Sometimes So-
cialism has brought about a
Utopian millenium (Bellamy),;
•ometimes it has engendered a
tyranny as bad as that of the real
U.S.S.R. The prophets erred in
seeking political simplicity,

whereas reality has been infinitely
various, inconsistent, and untidy.
The authors have repeatedly
made Great Britain into a repub-
lic or a Socialist dictatorship, but
none foresaw the present mild
bumbling democratic Socialist
monarchy, a more contradictory
conglomeration than any author
ever imagined. Several writers
have annexed all of North Amer-
ica to the United States, to the
intense annoyance of Canadians
and Mexicans who think they’re
doing all right and have no desire
to join the Yanquis.

Usually the prophets (being
Americans and Britons — I haven’t
read much of the Continental
literature) have either proclaimed
or hoped for the triumph of dem-
ocracy, with a few exceptions.
That delightful old imperialist
Kipling put the world under an
irresponsible Aerial Board of
Control, while Lieutenant Fuller
reformed the United States along
the lines one would expect from
a naively well-meaning military
man: He had a single political
party and got rid of such dis-
orderly manifestations of democ-
racy as juries and labor unions.

And what of war? The earlier
prophets failed to foresee the
mechanization and complexity of
modern warfare; while some in-
troduced airplanes, most retained
horse cavalry. So did the Russian
Red Army, but not without ex-

10

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

’

fc

tensive modernization. The tank
was foreseen only in two shorts,
one by Wells ( The Land Iron-
clads, 1903) and the other by
Colonel Swinton of the Royal
Engineers, who was one of the
actual inventors of the tank.

For first-class war prophecies
we have to come to later times:
to Hector By water’s The Great
Pacific War (1925) and Floyd
Gibbon’s The Red Napoleon
(1929). By water, a British naval
expert, told of an American- Jap-
anese war of 1931-3. In many
respects it followed the course of
the real one: the Japanese took
Guam and the Philippines; then
we took Truk, Angaur, and re-
took the Philippines, brought the
Japanese fleet to bay, and de-
feated it.

Bywater, trying to be conserva-
tive, underestimated the range
and striking power of modem
fleets, and vastly underestimated
the power of the airplane. Am-
phibious operations and new war-
ship construction play but little
part in his war. In his preface he
says: “It would have been easy,
for example, to bring the Jap-
anese battle fleet to Hawaii . . .
but to do so would have been to
expose the narrative to the well-
merited ridicule of informed crit-
ics.” Shades of Pearl Harbor! Of
course in 1931 the airplane was
not so effective as a decade later,
and landing -craft had not even

been invented. Prophecy should,
however, by rights anticipate
such developments.

G IBBONS tells of the nearly
successful effort of Ivan
Karakhan, Stalin’s successor, to
conquer the world in order to es-
tablish communism and to abol-
ish racial inequality. During
1932-6 his armies overrun all the
Old World and then, using the
European and Japanese fleets, he
hurls great expeditions across the
oceans to Mexico and both coasts
of Canada to attack the United
States. If Bywater underesti-
mated the possibilities of such
operations, Gibbons greatly over-
estimated them. But his climactic
naval battle is more nearly in ac-
cord with technical possibilities
than Bywater’s; the American
surface fleet is outnumbered, but
American superiority in sub-
marines and airplanes turns the
tide.

Gibbons’s shortcomings are
ideological. In decrying the Red
Menace he overlooked the Fascist
Menace, destined to make an
earlier (though not necessarily
more dangerous) attempt at
world conquest. And he makes
his villain Karakhan call en-
lightenedly for racial equality and
the brotherhood of man. like most
modern statesmen, while Gibbons
himself appeals to his readers’
basest prejudices by ranting

WHERE WERE WE?

11

about the “ydlow hordes.’* Both
Gibbons and Bywater thought the
Japanese-Americans of Hawaii
would revolt; actually, in World
War II, they provided the U. S.
Army with loyal soldiers whose
combat records were magnificent.

Thus the later Victorian pro-
phetic story-writers managed to
be right in a few broad and sim-
ple respects in their prophecies of
the latter half of the 20th cen-
tury. They foresaw that the world
would become more mechanized,
populous, and complicated; that
Socialism would grow and would
attain power in some countries;
that faster transportation, espe-
cially by air, would affect men’s
lives.

As they got more specific and
detailed, though, they went fur-
ther astray, and some important
developments they overlooked
pretty generally — the autombile,
radio, and motion picture; the
internal combustion engine in its
many forms; prohibition, birth
control, and wide-spread divorce;
the fading away of the old Ju-
deo-Christian nudity tabu; and
so on. Their ratio of success is
little greater than that to be ex-
pected by luck; it seems greater

because we remember the suc-
cessful forecasts and forget the
wild guesses.

The science fiction of the pres-
ent appears to be considerably
better grounded scientifically, so-
ciologically and psychologically,
in its higher forms. Even if we
cannot point to any one story and
say with confidence, here is the
real future, the mere concept of
a different future is an enormous
advance. When the Martians
land, or tyranny clamps down on
the world, or we bomb ourselves
into barbarism, science fiction
readers at least won’t rush about
crying; “It’s impossible! It just
can’t be!” They’ll have been
through it all before.

The possibility, in fact, if we
judge by the older prophecies, is
that we’ll turn out to have been
too conservative. Not only pessi-
mistically but otherwise, for sci-
ence fiction also envisions happy
futures as well as doomed ones.
It will be interesting, to put it
calmly, to see what some citizens
of 2000 A. D. will say in reviewing
the stories in Galaxy Science Fic-
tion. I’d rather like to be one of
them.

— L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP

By simply existing today, we can see how far our science fiction ancestors’
prophecies were from the astonishing reality of the present. But remember — they
lacked the scientific techniques we control and could only hope and guess.
Utilizing modem methods of extrapolation, Robert A. Heinlein indicates, in the
next article, what — and what not — to expect in the year 2,000 A.D.

12

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

WHERE 1

ro?

By

ROBERT A.
HEINLEIN

The coming events casting their shadows
before them do not need any microscopes
to be seen — they need reducing glasses!

M OST science fiction con-
sists of big-muscled sto-
ries about adventures in
space, atomic wars, invasions by
extraterrestrials, and such. All
very well — but now we will take
time out for a look at ordinary
homelife half a century hence.

Except for tea leaves and other
magical means, the only way to
gljiess at the future is by examin-
ing the present in the light of
the past. Let’s go back half a
century and visit your grand-
mother before we attempt to visit
your grandchildren.

1900: Mr. McKinley is presi-
dent and the airplane has not yet
been invented. We’ll knock on
the door of that house with the
gingerbread, the stained glass,
and the cupola.

The lady of the house answers.
You recognize her — your own
grandmother, Mrs. Middleclass.
She is almost as plump as you
remember her, for she “put on
some good healthy flesh” after
she married.

She welcomes you and offers
coffee cake, fresh from her mod-
ern kitchen (running water from

w

a hand pump ; the best coal range
Pittsburgh ever produced). Ev-
erything about her house is
modern — hand-painted china,
souvenirs from the Columbian
Exposition, beaded portieres, shin-
ing baseburner stoves, gas lights,
a telephone on the wall.

There is no bathroom, but she
and Mr. Middleclass are thinking
of putting one in. Mr. Middle-
class’s mother calls this nonsense,
but your grandmother keeps up
with the times. She is an advocate
of clothing reform, wears only one
petticoat, bathes twice a week,
and her corsets are guaranteed
rustproof. She has been known to
defend female suffrage — though
not in the presence of Mr. Mid-
dleclass.

Nevertheless, you find diffi-
culty in talking with her. Let’s
jump back to the present and try
again.

The automatic elevator takes
us to the ninth floor, and we
pick out a door by its number,
that being the only way to dis-
tinguish it.

“Don’t bother to ring,'' you
say? What? It’s your door and
you know exactly what lies be-
yond it —

Very well, let's move a half
century into the future and try
another middleclass home.

It’s a suburban home not two
hundred miles from the city. You
pick out your destination from

the air while _the cab is landing
you — a cluster of hemispheres
which makes you think of the
houses Dorothy found in Oz.

You set the cab to return to
its hangar, and you go into the
entrance hall. You neither knock
nor ring. The screen has warned
them before you touched down on
the landing flat and the auto-
butler’s transparency is shining
with: PLEASE RECORD A MESSAGE.

Before you can address the
microphone, a voice calls out,
“Oh, it’s you! Come in, come in.”
There is a short wait, because
your granddaughter is not at the
door. The autobutler has flashed
your face to the patio, where she
was reading and sunning herself,
and has relayed her voice back
to you.

She pauses at the door, looks
at you through one-way glass,
and frowns slightly; she knows
your old-fashioned disapproval
of casual nakedness. Her kindness
causes her to disobey the family
psychiatrist — she grabs a robe
and covers herself before signal-
ing the door to open.

You have thus been classed
with strangers, tradespeople, and
others who are not family inti-
mates. But you must swallow
your annoyance; you cannot ob-
ject to her wearing clothes when
you have disapproved of her not
doing so.

There is no reason why she

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

should wear clothes at home. The
house is clean — not somewhat
clean, but clean — and comfor-
able. The floor is warm to bare
feet; there are no unpleasant
drafts, no cold walls. All dust is
precipitated from air entering
this house. All textures, of floor,
of couch, of chair, are comfort-
able to bare skin. Sterilizing
ultra-violet light floods each
room whenever it is unoccupied,
and, several times a day, a
“whirlwind” blows house-created
dust from all surfaces and whisks
it out. These auto-services are
unobtrusive because automatic
cutoff switches prevent them from
occurring whenever a mass in
a room is radiating at blood tem-
perature.

Such a house can become un-
tidy, but not dirty. Five minutes
of straightening, a few swipes at
children’s fingermarks and her
day’s housekeeping is done. Of-
tener than sheets were changed
in Mr. McKinley's day, this
housewife rolls out a fresh layer
of sheeting on each sitting sur-
face and stuffs the discard down
the oubliette. This is easy; there
is a year’s supply on a roll con-
cealed in each chair or couch.
The tissue sticks by pressure un-
til pulled loose and does not ob-
scure the pattern and color.

You go into the family room,
sit down, and remark on the
lovely day.

WHERE TO?

“Isn’t it?’’ she answers. “Come
sunbathe with me.”

The sunny patio gives excuse
for bare skin by anyone’s stand-
ards. Thankfully, she throws off
the robe and stretches out on a
couch. You hesitate a moment*.
After all, though, she is your own
grandchild, so why not? You un-
dress quickly, since you left your
outer wrap and shoes at the door
(only barbarians wear street
shoes in a house) and what re-
mains is easily discarded. Your
grandparents had to get used to
a mid-century beach. It was no
easier than this.

On the other hand, their bodies
were wrinkled and old, whereas
yours isn’t. The triumphs of en-
docrinology, of cosmetics, of
plastic surgery, of figure control
in every way are such that a man
or a woman need not change
markedly from maturity until old
age. A person can keep his body
as firm and slender as he wishes
— and most of them so wish. This
has produced a paradox; the
United States has the highest per-
centage of old people in all its
two and a quarter centuries, yet.
it seems to have a larger propor-*,
tion of handsome young citizens
than ever before.

(“Don’t whistle, son! That’$»
your grandmother — ”) <

This garden is half sunbathing;
patio, complete with shrubs apd,
flowers, lawn and couches, and

IS

half swimming pool. The day,
though sunny, is quite cold — but
not in the garden, nor is the
pool chilly. The garden appears to
be outdoors, but is not; it is
covered by a bubble of transpar-
ent plastic, blown and cured on
the spot. You .are inside the
bubble; the Sun is outside; you
cannot see the plastic.

She invites you to lunch; you
protest.

“Nonsense!” she answers. “I
like to cook.”

Into the house she goes. You
think of following, but it is de-
liciously warm in the March sun-
shine and you are feeling relaxed
to be away from the city. You
locate a switch on the side of
the couch, set it for gentle mas-
sage, and let it knead your trou-
bles away. The couch notes your
heart rate and breathing; as they
slow, so does it. When you fall
asleep, it stops.

Meanwhile your hostess has
been “slaving away over a hot
stove.” To be precise, she has al-
lowed a menu selector to pick out
an 800-calory, 4-ration-point
luncheon. It is a random-choice
gadget, somewhat like a slot ma-
chine, which has in it the running
inventory of her larder and which
will keep hunting until it turns up
a balanced meal. Some house-
wives claim that it takes the art
out of cookery, but our hostess
is one of many who have accepted

it thankfully as an endless source
of new menus. The choice is lim-
ited today as it has been three
months since she had done gro-
cery shopping. She rejects several
menus; the selector continues pa-
tiently to turn up combinations
until she finally accepts one based
around fish disguised as chops.

Your hostess takes the selected
items from shelves or the freezer.

All are prepared; some are pre-
cooked. Those still tt> be cooked
she puts into her — well, her
“processing equipment.” though
she calls it a “stove.” Part of it
traces its ancestry to diathermy
equipment and other features
derived from metal enameling
processes. She sets up cycles,
punches buttons, and must wait
two or three minutes for the meal.

Despite her complicated
kitchen, she doesn’t eat as well
as her great grandmother did — too
many people and too few acres.

Never mind; the tray she
carries out to the patio is well
laden and beautiful. You are
both willing to nap again when
it is empty. You wake to find
that she has burned the dishes
and is recovering from her “ex-
ertions” in her refresher. Feeling *

hot and sweaty from your nap,
you decide to use it when she
come out. There is a wide choice
offered by the ’fresher, but you
limit yourself to a warm shower
growing gradually cooler, fol-

iALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

r; ’: ; \<

" ’ .'- jv

lowed by warm air drying, a short
massage, spraying with scent, and
dusting with powder.

Your host arrives home as you
come out; he has taken a holiday
from his engineering job and has
had the two boys down at the
beach.

His wife sends the boys in to
’fresh themselves, then says,
“Have a nice day, dear?”

He answers, “The traffic was
terrible. Had to make the last
hundred miles on automatic.
Anything on the phone for me?”
“Weren’t you on relay?”
“Didn’t set it. Didn’t want to
be bothered.” He steps to the
house phone, plays back his calls,
finds nothing he cares to bother
with — but the machine goes
ahead and prints one massage.
He pulls it out and tears it off.
“What is it?” his wife asks.
“Telestat from Luna City —
from Aunt Jane.”

“What does she say?”
“Nothing much. According to
her, the Moon is a great place and
she wants us to come visit her.”
“Not likely!” his wife answers.
“Imagine being shut up in an
air-conditioned cave.”

“When you are Aunt Jane’s
age, my honey lamb, and as frail
as she is, with a bad heart thrown
in, you’ll go to the Moon and like
it Low gravity is not to be
sneezed at. Auntie will probably
live to be a hundred and twenty.

heart trouble and all.”

“Would you go to the Moon?”
she asks.

“If I needed to and could af-
ford it. Right?” he asks you.

You consider your answer. Life
still looks good to you and stair-
ways are beginning to be difficult.
Low gravity is attractive, even
though it means living out your
days at the Geriatrics Foundation
on the Moon.

“It might be fun to visit,” you
answer. “One wouldn’t have to
stay.”

TTOSPITALS for old people on
the Moon? Let’s not be
silly —

Or is it silly? Might it not be
a logical and necessary outcome
of our world today?

Space travel we will have not
fifty years from now, but much
sooner. It’s breathing down our
necks. As for geriatrics on the
Moon, for most of us no price
is too high and no amount of
trouble is too great to extend the
years of our lives. It is possible
that low gravity (one-sixth, on
the Moon) may not lengthen
lives; nevertheless it may — we
don’t know yet — and it will most
certainly add greatly to comfort
on reaching that inevitable age
when the burden of dragging
around one’s body is almost too
much, or when we would other-
wise resort to an oxygen tent to

1J

WHERE TO?

lessen the work of a wornout
heart.

By the rules of prophecy, such
a prediction is probable, rather
than impossible.

But the items and gadgets sug-
gested above are examples of
timid prophecy.

What are the rules of proph-
ecy, if any?

Look at the graph shown here.
The solid curve is what has been
going on this past century. It
represents many things — use of
power, speed of transport, num-
bers of scientific and technical
workers, advance in communica-
tion, average miles traveled per
person per year, advances in
mathematics, the rising curve of
knowledge. Call it the curve of
human achievement.

What is the correct way to pro-
ject this curve into the future?

Despite everything, there is a
stubborn “common sense” tend-
ency to project it along dotted
line number (1) like the patent
office official of a hundred years
back who quit his job “because
everything had already been in-
vented.” Even those who don’t
expect a slowing up at once tend
to expect us to reach a point of
diminishing returns — dotted line
number (2).

Very daring minds are willing
to predict that we will continue
our present rate of progress —
dotted line number (3) — a
tangent.

But the proper way to project
the curve is dotted line number
(4), because there is no reason,
mathematical, scientific, or his-
torical, to expect that curve to
flatten out, or to reach a point of
diminishing returns, or simply to
go on as a tangent. The correct
projection, by all known facts to-
day, is for the curve to go on up
indefinitely with increasing steep-
ness.

The timid little predictions
earlier in this article actually be-
long to curve (1) or, at most, to
curve (2). You can count on
changes in the next fifty years
at least eight times as great as
the changes of the past fifty years.

The Age of Science has not yet
opened.

axiom: A “nine-day wonder”

5AIAXY SCIENCE FICTION

16

of disease is revising relations be-
tween sexes to an extent that will
change our entire social and eco-
nomic structure.

3. The most important military
fact of this century is that there
is no way to repel an attack from
space.

4. It appears utterly impos-
sible that the United States will
start a “preventive war.” We will
fight when attacked, either di-
rectly or in a territory we have
guaranteed to defend.

5. In fifteen years the housing
shortage will be solved by a
“breakthrough” into new tech-
nology which will make every
house now standing as obsolete
as outdoor privies. The housing
is taken as a matter of course on
the tenth day.

axiom : A “common sense” pre-
diction is sure to err on the side
of timidity.

axiom : The more extravagant
a prediction sounds, the more
likely it is to come true.

So let’s have a few free-swing-
ing predictions about the future.

Some will be wrong — but cau-
tious predictions are sure to be
wrong.

1. Interplanetary travel is wait-
ing at your front door, c.O.D. It’s
yours when you pay for it, which
the government is doing at least
on an experimental basis.

2. Contraception and control

shortage will get worse until then,

6. We’ll all be getting a little
hungry by and by.

7. The cult of the phony in art
will disappear. So-called “modern
art” will be discussed only by
psychiatrists.

8. Freud will be classed as a
pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer,
and psychoanalysis will be re-
placed as a growing, changing
“operational psychology” based
on measurement and prediction.

9. Cancer, the common cold,
and tooth decay will all be con-
quered. The revolutionary new
problem in medical research will
be to accomplish “regeneration,”
i.e., to enable a man to grow a
new leg, rather than fit him with
an artificial limb.

10. By the end of this century
mankind will have explored the
Solar System, and the first ship
intended to reach the nearest
star will be abuilding.

11. Your personal telephone
will be small enough to carry in
your handbag. Your house tele-
phone will record messages, an-
swer simple queries, and transmit
vision.

12. Intelligent life of some sort
will be found on Mars.

13. A thousand miles an hour
at a cent a mile will be common-
place; short hauls will be made
in evacuated subways at extreme
speeds.

14. A major objective of ap-

plied physics will be to control
gravity.

15 We will not achieve a
“world state” in the predictable
future. Nevertheless, Communism
will vanish from this planet.

16. Increasing mobility will
disenfranchise a majority of the
population. About 1990 a con-
stitutional amendment will do
away with state lines while re-
taining the semblance.

17. All aircraft will be con-
trolled by a giant radar net run
on a continentwide basis by a
multiple electronic “brain.”

18. Fish and yeast will become
our principle sources of proteins.
Beef will be a luxury; lamb and
mutton will disappear, because
sheep destroy grazing land.

19. Mankind will not destroy
itself,, nor will “civilization” be
wiped out.

Here are things we won't get
soon, if ever:

Travel through time.

Travel faster than, the speed of
light.

Control of telepathy and other
E S.P. phenomena.

“Radio” transmission of matter.
Manlike robots with manlike
reactions.

Laboratory creation of life.
Real understanding of what
“thought” is and how it is re-
lated to matter.

Scientific proof of personal sur-
vival after death.

A permanent end to war. (I
don’t like that prediction any bet-
ter than you do.)

"PREDICTION of gadgets is a
parlor trick anyone can
learn; but only a fool would at-
tempt to predict details of future
history (except as fiction, so
labeled). There are too many un-
knowns and no techniques for
integrating them even if they
were known.

Even to make predictions about
overall trends in technology is
now most difficult. In fields
where, before World War II,
there was one man working in
public, there are now ten, or a
hundred, working in secret. There
may be six men in the country
who have a clear picture of what
is going on in science today.
There may not be even one.

This is in itself a trend. Many
leading scientists consider it a
factor as disabling to us as the
dogma of Lysenkoism is to Rus-
sian technology. Nevertheless
there are clear-cut trends which
are certain to make this coming
era enormously more productive
and interesting than the frantic
one we have just passed through.
Among them are:

Cybernetics : The study of

communication and control of
mechanisms and organisms. This
includes the wonderful field
of mechanical and electronic

v GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

“brains” — but is not limited to it.
(These “brains” are a factor in
themselves that will speed up
technical progress the way a war
does.)

Semantics: A field which sfccms
concerned only with definitions
of words. It is not; it is a frontal
attack on epistemology — that is
to say. how we know what we
know, a subject formerly belong-
ing to long-haired philosophers.

New tools of mathematics and
logic, such as calculus of state-
ment, Boolean logic, morphologi-
cal analysis, generalized symbol-
ogy, newly invented mathematics
ol every sort — there is not space
even to name these enormous
fields, but they offer impetus to
every other field — medicine, so-
cial relations, biology, economics,
anything.

Biochemistry: Research into

the nature of protoplasm, into
enzyme chemistry, viruses, etc.,
give hope not only that we may
conquer disease, but that we may
someday understand the mechan-
nisms of life itself. Through this,
and with the aid of cybernetic
machines and radioactive iso-
topes, we may eventually acquire
a rigor of chemistry. Chemistry is
not a discipline today; it is a
jungle. We know the chemical be-
havior depends on the number of
orbital electrons in an atom and
that physical and chemical prop-
erties follow the pattern called

the Periodic Table. We don’t
know much else, save by cut-and-
try, despite the great size and
importance of the chemical in-
dustry. When chemistry L. ..ues
a discipline, mathematical chem-
ists will design new materials,
predict their properties, and tell
engineers how to make them —
without ever entering a labora-
tory. We’ve got a long way to go
on that one!

Nucleonics: We have yet to
find out what makes the atom
tick. Atomic power? Yes, we’ll
have it, in convenient packages —
when we understand the nucleus.
The field of radio -isotopes alone
is larger than was the entire
known body of science in 1900.
Before we are through with these
problems, we may find out how
the Universe is shaped and why .
Not to mention enormous un-
known vistas best represented
by ? ? ?

Some physicists are now using
two time scales, the T-scale. and
the fau-scale. Three billion years
on one scale can equal a mere
split-second on the other scale—
and yet both apply to you and
your kitchen stove. Of such anar-
chy is our present state in physics.

For such reasons we must in-
sist that the Age of Science has
not yet opened.

The greatest crisis facing us is
not Russia, not the Atom bomb,
not corruption in government, not

WHERE TO?

31

encroaching hunger, nor the mor-
als of the young. It is a crisis in
the organization and accessibility
of human knowledge. We own an
enormous “encyclopedia*' which
isn’t even arranged alphabetically.
Our “file cards” are spilled on the
floor, nor were they ever in order.
The answers we want may be
buried somewhere in the heap,
but it might take a lifetime to lo-
cate two already known facts,
place them side by side and de-
rive a third fact, the one we
urgently need.

Call it the Crisis of the Li-
brarian.

We need a new “specialist” who
is not a specialist but a synthe-
sist. We need a new science to
be the secretary to all other
sciences.

Fortune-tellers can always be
sure of repeat customers by pre-
dicting what the customer wants
to hear ... it matters not whether
the prediction comes true. Con-
trariwise, the weather man is
often blamed for bad weather.

Brace yourself.

In 1900 the cloud on the hori-
zon was no bigger than a man’s
hand — but what lay ahead was
the Panic of 1907, World War I,
the panic following it, the De-
pression,. Fascism, World War II,
the Atom Bomb, and Red Russia.

The period immediately ahead
will b? the roughest, crudest one
in ,the long, hard history of man-

kind. It will probably include the
worst World War of them all.
Even if we are spared that awful
possibility, it is certain that there
will be no security anywhere, save
what you dig out of your own in-
ner spirit.

T>UT what of that picture we
drew of domestic luxury and
tranquility for Mr. and Mrs.
Middleclass, style 2000 A. D.?

They lived through it. They
survived.

Our prospects need not dismay
you. not if you or your kin were
at Bloody Nose Ridge, at Gettys-
burg — trudged across the Plains
or went through the wars any-
where in the world. You and I
are here because we carry the
genes of uncountable ancestors
who fought — and won — against
death in all its forms. We’re
tough. We’ll survive. Most of us.

We’ve lasted through the pre-
liminary bouts; the main event
is coming up.

But it’s not for sissies.

The gathering wind will not de-
stroy everything, nor will the Age
of Science change everything.
Long after the first star ship
leaves for parts unknown, there
will still be outhouses in upstate
New York, there will be steers in
Texas, and, no doubt, the English
will stop for tea.

Stick around.

—ROBERT A. IIEINLEIN

DOUBLE

STANDARD

By ALFRED COPPEl

He did not have the qualifications to go
into space— so he had them manufactured!

Illustrated by MAC LEILAN

I T WAS after oh -one-hundred
when Kane arrived at my
apartment. I checked the hall
screen carefully before letting him
in, too, though the hour almost
precluded the possibility of any

inquisitive passers-by.

He didn’t say anything at all
when ho saw me, but his eyes
went a bit wide. That was per-
fectly natural, after all. The il-
legal piasti -cosmetician had done

2 »

DOUBLE STANDARD

his work better than well. I wasn’t room. “The Kim Hall on the ap-

I led Kane into the living room the same person. I don’t have to
and stood before him, letting him tell you that.”

fully, not taking his eyes off me. good long time. This is important
“Maybe,” he said. “Just to me, Kane. It isn’t just that I
maybe.” want to go. I have to. You can

I thought about the spaceship understand that, maybe."
standing proud and tall under the “Yes, Kim," he said bitterly,
stars, ready to go. And I knew “I can understand. Maybe if l
that it had to work. It had to. had your build and mass. I’d be
Some men dream of money, trying the same thing right now.
others of power. All my life I had My only chance was the Eugenics
dreamed only of lands in the sky. Board and they turned me down
The red sand hills of Mars, cold. Remember? Sex-linked pre-
moldering in aged slumber under dilection to carcinoma. Unsuit-
a cobalt-colored day; the icy able for colonial breeding
moranes of Io and Callisto, where stock — *’

0 the yellow methane snow drifted I felt a wave of pity for Kane
in the faint light of the Sun; the then. I was almost sorry I'd
barren, stark seas of the Moon, called him over. Within six hours
where razor-backed mountains I would be on board the space-
limned themselves against the ship, while he would be here,
star fields — Earthbound for always. Unsuit-

“I don’t know, Kim; you’re able for breeding stock in the
asking a hell of a lot, you know,” controlled colonies of Mars or

“It’ll work," I assured him. I thought about that, too. I
“The examination is cursory after knew I wouldn’t be able to carry
the application has been acted off my masquerade forever. I
on." I grinned easily under the wouldn’t want to. The stringent

Kane frowned at me and blew among the stars. And no Earth -
smoke into the still air of the bound spaceship captain would

Kane said.

Io and Callisto.

flesh mask. “And mine has.” physical examination given on
“You mean Kim Hall’s appli- landing would pierce my disguise

cation has,” he said.

I shrugged. “Well?”

easily. But by that time it would
be too late. I’d be there, out

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

24

carry my mass back instead of
precious cargo. I’d stay. If they
wanted me for a breeder then —
okay. In spite of my slight build
and lack of physical strength, I’d
still be where I wanted to be. In
the fey lands in the sky . . .

“I wish you all the luck in the
world, Kim,” my friend said. “I
really do. I don’t mean to throw
cold water on your scheme. You
know how few of us are permitted
off -world. Every one who makes
it is a — ” he grinned ruefully —
“a blow struck for equality.” He
savored the irony of it for a
moment and then his face grew
serious again. “It’s just that the
more I think of what you’ve done,
the more convinced I am that you
can’t get away with it. Forged
applications. Fake fingerprints
and X-rays. And this — ” He made
a gesture that took in all of my
appearance. Flesh, hair, clothes.
Everything.

“What the hell,” I said. “It’s
good, isn’t it?”

“Very good. In fact, you make
me uncomfortable, it’s so good.
But it’s too damned insane.”

“Insane enough to work.” I
said. “And it’s the only chance.
How do you think I’d stack up
with the Eugenics Board? Not a
chance. What they want out there
is big muscle boys. Tough
breeders. This is the only way for
me.”

“Well," Kane said. “You’re big

enough now, it seems to me.”
“Had to be. Lots to cover up.
Lots to add.”

“And you’re all set? Packed
and ready?”

“Yes,” I said. “All set.”

“Then I guess this is it.” He
extended his hand. I took it.
“Good luck, Kim. Always,” he
said huskily. “I’ll hear if you
make it. All of us will. And we’ll
be cheering and thinking that
maybe, before we’re all too old,
we can make it, too. And if not,
that maybe our sons will — with-
out having to be prize bulls,
either.”

He turned in the doorway and
forced a grin.

“Don’t forget to write,” he said.

T HE spacefield was streaked
with the glare of floodlights,
and the ship gleamed like a sil-
very spire against the desert
night.

I joined the line of passengers
at the checking desk, my half-
kilo of baggage clutched ner-
vously against my side. My heart
was pounding with a mixture of
fear and anticipation, my muscles
twitching under the unaccus-
tomed tension of the plastiflesh
sheath that hid me.

All around me were the smells
and sounds and sights of a space-
port, and above me were the stars,
brilliant and close at hand in the
dark sky.

DOUBLE STAND AID

29

The queue moved swiftly to-
ward the checking desk, where a
gray-haired officer with a seamed
face sat.

The voice of the timekeeper
came periodically from the loud-
speakers around the perimeter of
the field.

" Passengers for the Martian
Queen , check in at desk five. It
is now H minus forty-seven.**

I stood now before the officer,
tense and afraid. This was criti-
cal, the last check-point before I
could actually set foot in the
ship.

"It is now H minus forty-five**
the timer’s metallic voice said.

The officer looked up at me,
and then at the faked photoprint
on my papers.

"Kim Hall, age twenty-nine,
vocation agri-technician and hy-
droponics expert, height 171 cen-
timeters, weight 60 kilos. Right?”

I nodded soundlessly.

"Sums check within mass-
limits. Physical condition index
3.69. Fertility index 3.66. Com-
patibility index 2.99.” The officer
turned to a trim-looking assistant.
"All check?”

The uniformed girl nodded.

1 began to breathe again.

"Next desk, please,” the officer
said shortly.

I moved on to the medics at
the next stop. A gray-clad nurse
checked my pulse and respiration.
She smiled at me.

"Excited?” she asked. "Don’t
be.” She indicated the section of
the checking station where the
breeders were being processed.
"You should see how the bulls
take it,” she said with a laugh.

She picked up an electrified
stamp. “Now don’t worry. This
won’t hurt and it won’t disfigure
you permanently. But the ship’s
guards won’t let you aboard with-
out it. Government regulations,
you know. We cannot load per-
sonal dossiers on the ships and
this will tell the officers all they
need to know about you. Weight
limitations, you see.”

I almost laughed in her face at
that. If there was one thing all
Earth could offer me that I
wanted, it was that stamp on my
forehead : a passport to the

stars . . .

She set the stamp and pressed
it against my forehead. I had a
momentary' 1 fear about the dura-
bility of the flesh mask that cov-
ered my face, but it was unneces-
sary. The plastiskin took the
temporary tattoo the way real
flesh would have.

I felt the skin and read it in
my mind. I knew exactly what it
said. I’d dreamed of it so often
and so long all my life. My ticket
on the Martian Queen. My pass
to those lands in the sky.

CERT SXF HALL, K. RS MART
QUEEN SN1775690.

I walked across the ramp and

94

6AIAXY SCIENCE FICTION

into the lift beside the great
tapering hull of the rocket. My
heart was singing.

The timer said : "It is H minus
thirty-one."

And then I stepped through the
outer valve, into the Queen. The
air was brisk with the tang of
hydrogenol. Space-fuel. The ship
was alive and humming with a
thousand relays and timers and
whispering generators, readying
herself for space.

I LAY down in the acceleration
hammock and listened to the
ship.

This was ev^ything I had
wished for all my life. To be a
free man among the stars. It was
worth the chances I had taken,
worth the lying and cheating and
danger.

The conquest of space had split
humanity in a manner that no
one could have foreseen, though
the reasons for the schism were
obvious. They hinged on two
factors — mass and durability.
Thus it was that some remained
forever Earthbound while others
reached for the sky. And bureauc-
racy being what it was, the de-
cision as to who stayed and who
went was made along the easy,
obvious line of demarcation.

I and half the human race were
on the wrong side of the line.

From the ship's speakers came
the voice of the timer.

u It is H minus ten. Ready your-
selves tor the takeoff .”

I thought of Kane and the
men I had known and worked
with for half of my twenty-nine
years. They, too, were forbidden
the sky. Tragic men, really, with
their need and their dream writ-
ten in the lines of pain and yearn-
ing on their faces.

The speaker suddenly snapped :

“ There is an illegal passenger
on board! All persons will remain
in their quarters until he is ap-
prehended! Repeat: there is an
illegal passenger on board! Re-
main in your quarters!"

My heart seemed to stop beat-
ing. Somehow, my deception had
been uncovered. How, it didn’t
matter, but it had. And the im-
portant thing now was simply to
stay on board at all costs. A
space ship departure could not be
delayed. The orbit was computed.
The blastaway timed to the milli-
second . . .

I leaped to the deck and out of
my cubicle. A spidery catwalk
led upward, toward the nose of
the ship. Below me I could hear
the first sounds of the search.

I ran up the walk, my foot-
steps sounding hollowly in the
steel shaft. A bulkhead blocked
my progress ahead and I sought
the next deck.

The timer said : “ It is H minus
six"

It was a passenger deck. I

DOUBII STANDARD

27

could sec frightened faces peer-
ing out of cubicles as I ran past.
Behind me, the pursuit grew
louder, nearer.

I slammed open a bulkhead
and found another walk leading
upward toward the astrogation
blisters in the topmost point of
the Queen.

Behind me, I caught a glimpse
of a ship’s officer running, armed
with a stun-pistol. My breath
rasped in my throat and the
plastiskin sheath on my body
shifted sickeningly.

"You Mere! Halt. 1 " The voice
was high-pitched and excited. I
flung through another bulkhead
hatch and out into the dorsal
blister. I seemed to be suspended
between Earth and sky. The stars
glittered through the steelglas of
the blister, and the desert lay
below, streaked with searchlights
and covered with tiny milling
figures. The warning light on the
control bunker turned from
amber to red as I watched, chest
heaving.

"It is H minus three" the timer
said. “Rig ship tor space."

I slammed the hatch shut and
spun the wheel lock. I stood filled
with a mixture of triumph and
fear. They could never get me out
of the ship in time now — but I
would have to face blast away in
the blister, unprotected. A shock
that could kill . . .

Through the speaker, the cap-

tain’s talker snapped orders:
“ Abandon pursuit! Too late to
dump him now. Pick him up
after acceleration is completed."
And then maliciously, knowing
that I could hear: “ Scrape him
off the deck when we're in space.
That kind can’t take much."

I felt a blaze of red fury. That
kind. The Earthbound kind! I
wanted to live, then, more than I
had ever wanted to live before.
To make a liar out of that sneer-
ing, superior voice. To prove that
I was as good as all of them.

"It is H minus one,” said the
timer.

Orders filtered through the
speaker.

“ Outer valves closed. Inner
valves closed."

" Minus thirty seconds. Condi-
tion red."

" Pressure in the ship. One- third
atmosphere.”

"Twenty seconds."

"Ship secure for space.”

"Ten, nine, eight — ”

I lay prone on the steel deck,
braced myself and prayed.

"Seven, six, five — ”

"Gyros on. Course set."

"Four, three, two — ”

The ship trembled. A great
light flared beyond the curving
transparency of the blister.

"Up ship!"

A hand smashed down on me,
crushing me into the deck.

I thought: I must live. I can’t

21

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

die. / won’t die!

I felt the spaceship rising. I
felt her reaching for the stars.
I was a part of her. I screamed
with pain and exaltation. The
hand pressed harder, choking the
breath from me, stripping the
plastiskin away in long, damp
strips.

Darkness flickered before my
eyes. I lay helpless and afraid and
transfigured with a joy I had
never known before.

Distorted, half-naked, I clung
to life.

\V7HEN I opened my eyes, they
were all around me. They
stood in a half- circle, trim,
uniformed. Their smooth faces
and cropped hair and softly
molded bodies looked strange
against the functional steel angu-
larity of the astrogation blister.

I staggered to my feet, long
strips of plastic flesh dangling
from me.

The Queen was in space. I was
in space, no longer Earthbound.

“Yes,” I said, “I lived! Look
at me!”

I stripped off the flesh mask,
peeled away the red, full lips, the
long transformation.

“I’ve done it. Others will do it,
too. Not breeders — not brainless
ornaments to a hyper-nymphoid
phallus! Just ordinary men. Or-
dinary men with a dream. You
can’t keep the sky for yourselves.
It belongs to all of us.”

I stood with my back to the
blazing stars and laughed at
them.

“In the beginning it was right
that you should be given priority
over us. For centuries we kept
you in subjection and when the
Age of Space came, you found
your place. Your stamina, your
small stature, everything about
you fitted you to be mistresses of
the sky . . .

“But it’s over. Over and done
with. We can all be free — ”

I peeled away the artificial
breasts that dangled from my
chest.

I stood swaying drunkenly, de-
fiantly.

They came to me, then. They
took me gently and carried me
below, to the comfort of a white
bunk. They soothed my hurts and
nursed me. For in spite of it all,
they were women and I was a
man in pain.

—ALFRED COPPEL

The Big News Next Month . . .

THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT
by Robert A. Heinlein

A remorselessly logical novelet based on actual , provable statistics I It's fiction, of
course, but you may find that fact hard to remember!

Conditionally

They were such cute synthetic creatures, it
was impossible not to love them. Of course ,
that was precisely why they were dangerous!

T HERE was no use hanging
around after breakfast. His
wife was in a hurt mood,
and he could neither endure the
hurt nor remove it. He put on
his coat in the kitchen and stood

for a moment with his hat in his
hands. His wife was still at the
table, absently fingering the han-
dle of her cup and staring fixedly
out the window at the kennels
behind the house. He moved

30

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

Human

By WALTER M. MILLER, JR.

Illustrated by

quietly up behind her and
touched her silk-clad shoulder.
The shoulder shivered away from
him, and her dark hair swung
shiningly as she shuddered. He
drew his hand back and his be-
wildered face went slack and
miserable.

DAVID STONE

“Honeymoon’s over, huh?”

She said nothing, but shrugged
faintly.

“You knew I worked for the
F.B.A.,” he said. “You knew I’d
have charge of a district pound.
You knew it before we got mar-
ried.”

“I didn’t know you killed
them,” she said venomously
“I won’t have to kill many.
Besides, they’re only animals.”
“Intelligent animals!”
“Intelligent as a human imbe-
cile, maybe.”

“A small child is an imbecile.
Would you kill a small child?”
“You’re taking intelligence as
the only criterion of humanity,”
he protested hopelessly, knowing
that a logical defense was useless
against sentimentality. “Baby — ”
“Don’t call rrte baby! Call them
baby!”

Norris backed a few steps to-
ward the door. Against his better
judgment, he spoke again. “Anne
honey, look! Think of the good
things about the job. Sure, every-
thing has its ugly angles. But
think — we get this house rent-
free; I’ve got my own district
with no bosses around; I make
my own hours; you’ll meet lots of
people that stop in at the pound.
It’s a fine job, honey!”

She sipped her coffee and ap-
peared to be listening, so he went
on.

“And what can I do? You know
how the Federation handles em-
ployment. They looked over my
aptitude tests and sent me to
Bio- Administration. If I don’t
want to follow my aptitudes, the
only choice is common labor.
That’s the law."

“ I suppose you have an apti-

tude for killing babies?” she said
sweetly.

Norris withered. His voice went
desperate. “They assigned me to
it because I liked babies. And be-
cause I have a B.S. in biology
and an aptitude for dealing with
people. Can’t you understand?
Destroying unclaimed units is the
smallest part of it. Honey, before
the evolvotron, before Anthropos
went into the mutant-animal bus-
iness, people used to elect dog-
catchers. Think of it that way—
I’m just a dogcatcher.”

Her cool green eyes turned
slowly to meet his gaze. Her face
was delicately cut from cold mar-
ble. She was a small woman,
slender and fragile, but her quiet
contempt made her loom.

He backed closer to the door.

“Well, I’ve got to get on the
job.” He put on his hat and
picked at a splinter on the door.
He frowned studiously at the
splinter. “I — I’ll see you tonight.”
He ripped the splinter loose when
it became obvious that she didn’t
want to be kissed.

He grunted a nervous good-by
and stumbled down the hall and
out of the house. The honeymoon
was over, all right.

He climbed in the kennel-truck
and drove east toward the high-
way. The suburban street wound
among the pastel plasticoid cot-
tages that were set approximately
two to an acre on the lightly

32

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

wooded land. With its population
legally fixed at three hundred
million, most of the country had
become one big suburb, dotted
with community centers and
lined with narrow belts of indus-
trial development. Norris wished
there were someplace where he
could be completely alone.

As he approached an intersec-
tion, he saw a small animal sit-
ting on the curb, wrapped in its
own bushy tail. Its oversized
head was bald on top, but the
rest of its body was covered with
blue-gray fur. Its tiny pink
tongue was licking daintily at
small forepaws with prehensile
thumbs. It was a cat-Q-5. It
glanced curiously at the truck as
Norris pulled to a Jialt.

He smiled at it from the win-
dow and called, “What’s your
name, kitten?"

The cat-Q-5 stared at him im-
passively for a moment, let out a
stuttering high-pitched wail,
then: “Kiyi Rorry."

“Whose child are you, Rorry?"
he asked. “Where do you live?"

The cat-Q-5 took its time
about answering. There were no
houses near the intersection, and
Norris feared that the animal
might be lost. It blinked at him,
sleepily bored, and resumed its
paw-washing. He repeated the
questions.

“Mama kiyi," said the cat-Q-5
disgustedly.

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

“That’s right, Mama’s kitty.
But where is Mama? Do you sup-
pose she ran away?”

The cat-Q-5 looked startled. It
stuttered for a moment, and its
fur crept slowly erect. It glanced
around hurriedly, then shot off
down the street at a fast scamper.
He followed it in the truck until
it darted onto a porch and began
wailing through the screen,
“Mama no run ray! Mama no
run ray!"

Norris grinned and drove on.
A class-C couple, allowed no chil-
dren of their own, could get quite
attached to a cat-Q-5. The felines
were emotionally safer than
the quasi-human chimp-K series
called “neutroids.” When a pet
neutroid died, a family was
broken with gr ief ; but most
couples could endure the death
of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C
couples were allowed two lesser
units or one neutroid.

His grin faded as he wondered
which Anne would choose. The
Norrises were class-C — defective
heredity.

H E found himself in Sherman
III Community Center —
eight blocks of commercial build-
ings, serving the surrounding sub-
urbs. He stopped at the message
office to pick up his mail. There
was a memo from Chief Frank-
lin. He tore it open nervously and
read it in the truck. It was some-

31

thing he had been expecting for
several days.

Attention All District Inspectors:
Subject: Deviant Neutroid.

You will immediately begin a ays-
tematic and thorough survey of all
animals whose serial numbers fall in
the Bermuda- k-99 series for birth
dates during July 2234. This is in con-
nection with the Delmont Negligency
Case. Seize all animals in this cate-
gory, impound, and run proper sec-
tions of normalcy tests. Watch for
mental and glandular deviation. Del-
mont has confessed to passing only one
non-standard unit, but there may be
others. He disclaims memory of devi-
ant’s serial number. This could be a
ruse to bring a stop to investigations
when one animal i%. found. Be thor-
ough.

If allowed to reach age- set or adult-
hood, such a deviant could be dan-
gerous to its owner or to others. Hold
all seized K-99s who show the slightest
abnormality in the normalcy tests.
Forward to central lab. Return stand-
ard units to their owners. Accomplish
entire survey project within seven
days.

C. Franklin

Norris frowned at the last sen-
tence. His district covered about
two hundred square miles. Its re-
placement-quota of new neu-
troids was around three hundred
animals a month. He tried to esti-
mate how many of July’s influx
had been K-99s from Bermuda
Factory. Forty, at least. Could
he do it in a week? And there
were only eleven empty neutroid
cages in his kennel. The other
forty-nine were occupied by the
previous inspector’s "unclaimed”
inventory — awaiting destruction.

*4 <

He wadded the memo in his
pocket, then nosed the truck onto
the highway and headed toward
Wylo City and the district whole-
sale offices of Anthropos, Inc.
They should be able to give him
a list of all July’s Bermuda K-99
serial numbers that had entered
his territory, together with the
retailers to whom the animals had
been sold. A week’s deadline for
finding and testing forty neu-
troids would put him in a tight
squeeze.

He was halfway to Wylo City
when the radiophone buzzed on
his dashboard. He pulled into the
slow lane and answered quickly,
hoping for Anne’s voice. A polite
professional purr came instead.

"Inspector Norris? This is Doc-
tor Georges. We haven’t met, but
I imagine we will. Are you ex-
tremely busy at the moment?”

Norris hesitated. "Extremely ,**
he said.

"Well, this won’t take long.
One of my patients — a Mrs.
Sarah Glubbes — called a while
ago and said her baby was sick.
I must be getting absent-minded,
because I forgot she was class C
until I got there.” He hesitated.
"The baby turned out to be a
neutroid. It’s dying. Eighteenth
order virus.”

"So?”

“Well, she’s — uh— rather a pe-
culiar woman, Inspector. Keeps
telling me how much trouble she

ALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

had in childbirth, and how she
can’t ever have another one. It’s
pathetic. She believes it’s her own.
Do you understand?”

“I think so,” Norris replied
slowly. “But what do you want
me to do? Can’t you send the
neutroid to a vet?”

“She insists it’s going to a hos-
pital. Worst part is that she’s
heard of the disease. Knows it
can be cured with the proper
treatment — in humans. Of course,
no hospital would play along
with her fantasy and take a neu-
troid, especially since she couldn’t
pay for its treatment.”

“I still don’t see — ”

“I thought perhaps you could
help me fake a substitution. It’s
a K-48 series, five-year-old,
three -year set. Do you have one
in the pound that’s not claimed?”
Norris thought for a moment.
“I think I have one. You’re wel-
come to it, Doctor, but you can’t
fake a serial number. She’ll know
it And even though they look
exactly alike, the new one won’t
recognize her. It’ll be spooky.”
There was a long pause, fol-
lowed by a sigh. “I’ll try it any-
way. Can I come get the animal
now?”

“I'm on the highway — ”
“Please, Norris! This is urgent.
That woman will lose her mind
completely if — ”

“All right, I’ll call my wife
and tell her to open the pound for

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

you. Pick out the K-48 and sign
for it. And listen — ”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let me catch you falsi-
fying a serial number.”

Doctor Georges laughed faint-
ly. “I won’t, Norris. Thanks a
million.” He hung up quickly.

Norris immediately regretted
his consent. It bordered on being
illegal. But he saw it as a quick
way to get rid of an animal that
might later have to be killed.

He called Anne. Her voice was
dull. She seemed depressed, but
not angry. When he finished talk-
ing, she said, “All right, Terry,”
and hung up.

~|T Y noon, he had finished check-
ing the shipping lists at the
wholesale house in Wylo City.
Only thirty -five of July's Ber-
muda -K- 99s had entered his ter-
ritory, and they were about
equally divided among five pet
shops, three of which were in
Wylo City.

After lunch, he called each of
the retail dealers, read them the
serial numbers, and asked them
to check the sales records for
names and addresses of individ-
ual buyers. By three o'clock, he
had the entire list filled out, and
the task began to look easier. All
that remained was to pick up the
thirty-five animals.

And that, he thought, was like
trying to take a year-old baby

39

away from its doting mother. He
sighed and drove to the Wylo
suburbs to begin his rounds.

Anne met him at the door when
he came home at six. He stood on
the porch for a moment, smiling
at her weakly. The smile was not
returned.

“Doctor Georges came/’ she
told him. “He signed for the — ”
She stopped to stare at him.
“Darling, your face! What hap-
pened?”

Gingerly he touch the livid
welts down the side of his cheek.
“Just scratched a little,” he mut-
tered. He pushed past her and
went to the phone in the hall.
He sat eying it distastefully for
a moment, not liking what he had
to do. Anne came to stand beside
him and examine the scratches.

Finally he lifted the phone and
dialed the Wylo exchange. A
grating mechanical voice an-
swered. “Locator center. Your
party, please.”

“Sheriff Yates.” Norris grunted.

The robot operator, which had
on tape the working habits of
each Wylo City citizen, began
calling numbers. It found the off-
duty sheriff on its third try, in
a Wylo pool hall.

“I’m getting so I hate that in-
fernal gadget,” Yates grumbled.
“I think it’s got me psyched.
What do you want, Norris?”

“Cooperation. I’m mailing you
three letters charging three Wylo

3*

citizens with resisting a Federal
official — namely me — and charg-
ing one of them with assault. I
tried to pick up their neutroids
for a pound inspection — ” -

Yates bellowed lusty laughter
into the phone.

“It’s not funny. I’ve got to get
those neutroids. It’s in connection
with the Delmont case.”

Yates stopped laughing. “Oh.
Well, I’ll take care of it.”

“It’s a rush-order, Sheriff. Can
you get the warrants tonight and
pick up the animals in the morn-
ing?”

“Easy on those warrants, boy.
Judge Charleman can’t be dis-
turbed just any time. I can get
the newts to you by noon, I guess,
provided we don't have to get a
helicopter posse to chase down
the mothers.”

“That'll be all right. And listen,
Yates — fix it so the charges will
be dropped if they cooperate.
Don’t shake those warrants
around unless they just won’t
listen to reason. But get those
neutroids.”

“Okay, boy. Gotcha.”

Norris gave him the names and
addresses of the three unwilling
mothers. As soon as he hung up,
Anne touched his shoulders and
said, “Sit still.” She began
smoothing a chilly ointment over
his burning cheek.

“Hard day?” she asked.

“Not too hard. Those were just

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

three out of fifteen. I got the other
twelve. They’re in the truck.”

"That’s good,” she said.
"You’ve got only twelve empty
cages.”

He neglected to tell her that
he had stopped at twelve for just
this reason. “Guess I better get
them unloaded,” he said, stand-
ing up.

“Can I help you?”

He stared at her for a moment,
saying nothing. She smiled a lit-
tle and looked aside. “Terry, I’m
sorry — about this morning. I — I
know you’ve got a job that has
to be — ” Her lip quivered slightly.

Norris grinned, caught her
shoulders, and pulled her close.

“Honeymoon’s on again, huh?”
she whispered against his neck.

"Come on,” he grunted. “Let’s
unload some neutroids, before I
forget all about work.”

npHEY went out to the kennels
together. The cages were in-
side a sprawling concrete barn,
which was divided into three
large rooms — one for the fragile
neuter humanoid creatures, and
another for the lesser mutants,
such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf
bears, and foot-high lambs that
never matured into sheep. The
third room contained a small gas
chamber with a conveyor belt
leading from it to a crematory-
incinerator.

Norris kept the third locked

lest his wife see its furnishings.

The doll-like neutroids began
their mindless chatter as soon as
their keepers entered the build-
ing. Dozens of blazing blond
heads began dancing about their
cages. Their bodies thwacked
against the wire mesh as they
leaped about their compartments
with monkey grace.

Their human appearance was
broken by only two distinct fea-
tures: short beaverlike tails dec-
orated with fluffy curls of fur,
and an erect thatch of scalp-hair
that grew up into a bright can-
dleflame. Otherwise, they ap-
peared completely human, with
baby-pink skin, quick little
smiles, and cherubic faces. They
were sexually neuter and never
grew beyond a predetermined
age-set which varied for each
series. Age-sets were available
from one to ten years human
equivalent. Once a neutroid
reached its age-set, it remained
at the set's child-development
level until death.

“They must be getting to know
you pretty well,” Anne said,
glancing around at the cages.

Norris was wearing a slight
frown as he inspected the room.
“They’ve never gotten this ex-
cited before.”

He walked along a row of
cages, then stopped by a K-76 to
stare.

“Apple cores!” He turned to

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

37

face his wife. “How did apples
get in there?”

She reddened. “I felt sorry for
them, eating that goo from the
mechanical feeder. I drove down
to Sherman III and bought six
dozen cooking apples.”

“That was a mistake.”

She frowned irritably. “We can
afford it.”

“That’s not the point. There’s
a reason for the mechanical feed-
ers. He paused, wondering how he
could tell her the truth. He blun-
dered on : “They get to love who-
ever feeds them.”

“I can’t see — ”

“How would you feel about
disposing of something that loved
you?”

Anne folded her arms and
stared at him. “Planning to dis-
pose of any soon?" she asked
acidly.

“Honeymoon’s off again, eh?"

She turned away. “I’m sorry,
Terry. I’ll try not to mention it
again.”

He began unloading the truck,
pulling the frightened and
squirming doll-things forth one
at a time with a snare -pole. They
were one-man pets, always
frightened of strangers.

“What’s the Delmont case,
Terry?” Anne asked while he
worked.

“Huh?”

“I heard you mention it on the
phone. Anything to do with why

you got your face scratched?”

He nodded sourly. “Indirectly,
yes. It’s a long story.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, Delmont was a green-
horn evolvotron operator at the
Bermuda plant. His job was tak-
ing the unfertilized chimpanzee
ova out of the egg-multiplier,
mounting them in his machine,
and bombarding the gene struc-
ture with sub-atomic particles.
It’s tricky business. He flashes
a huge enlargement of the ovum
on the electron microscope screen
—large enough so he can see the
individual protein molecules. He
has an artificial gene pattern to
compare it with. It’s like shoot-
ing sub-atomic billiards. He’s got
to fire alpha-particles into the
gene structure and displace cer-
tain links by just the right
amount. And he’s got to be quick
about it before the ovum dies
from an overdose of radiation
from the enlarger. A good oper-
ator can get one success out of
seven tries.

“Well, Delmont worked a week
and spoiled over a hundred ova
without a single success. They
threatened to fire him. I guess he
got hysterical. Anyway, he re-
ported one success the next day.
It was faked. The ovum had a
couple of flaws — something
wrong in the central nervous sys-
tem’s determinants, and in the
glandular makeup. Not a stand-

3S

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

ard neutroid ovum. He passed it
on to the incubators to get a
credit, knowing it wouldn't be
caught until after birth.”

“It wasn’t caught at all?” Anne
asked.

“Funny thing, he was afraid it
wouldn’t be. He got to worrying
about it, thought maybe a men-
tal-deviant would pass, and that
it might be dangerous. So he went
back to its incubator and cut off
the hormone flow into its com-
partment.”

“Why that?”

“So it would develop sexuality.
A neutroid would be born a fe-
male if they didn’t give it sup-
pressive doses of male hormone
prenatally. That keeps ovaries
from developing and it comes out
neuter. But Delmont figured a
female would be caught and
stopped before the final inspec-
tion. They’d dispose of her with-
out even bothering to examine for
the other defects. And he could
blame the sexuality on an equip-
ment malfunction. He thought it
was pretty smart. Trouble was
they didn’t catch the female. She
went on through; they all look
female.”

“How did they find out about
it now?”

“He got caught last month, try-
ing it again. And he confessed to
doing it once before. No telling
how many times he really did it.”

Norris held up the final kick-

ing, squealing, tassel-haired doll
from the back of the kennel truck.
He grinned at his wife. “This lit-
tle fellow, for instance. It might
be a potential she. It might also
be a potential murderer. All these
kiddos are from the machines in
the section where Delmont
worked.”

Anne snorted and caught the
baby-creature in her arms. It
struggled and tried to bite, but
subsided a little when she dis-
entangled it from the snare.
“Kkr-r-reee,” it cooed nervously.
“Kkr-r-reee!”

“You tell him you’re no mur-
derer,” Anne purred to it.

Norris watched disapprovingly
while she fondled it. One thing
he had learned: to steer clear of
emotional attachments. It was
eight months old and looked like
a child of two years — a year short
of its age-set. And it was designed
to be as affectionate as a human
child.

“Put it in the cage, Anne,” he
said quietly.

She looked up and shook her
head.

“It belongs to somebody else.
If it fixes a libido attachment on
you, you're actually robbing its
owner. They can’t love many
people at once.”

She snorted, but installed the
thing in its cage.

“Anne — ” Norris hesitated,

hating to approach the subject.

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

99

“Do you — want one — for your-
self? I can sign an unclaimed one
over to you to keep in the house.
It won’t cost us anything."

Slowly she shook her head, and
her pale eyes went moody and
luminous. “I’m going to have one
of my own," she said.

He stood in the back of the
truck, staring down at her. “Do
you realize what — "

“I know what I’m saying.
We’re class-C on account of
heart-trouble in both our fami-
lies. Well, I don’t care, Terry. I’m
not going to waste a heart over
one of these pathetic little arti-
ficial animals. We’re going to
have a baby."

“You know what they'd do to
uS?"

“If they catch us, yes — com-
pulsory, divorce, sterilization. But
they won’t catch us. I’ll have it
at home, Terry. Not even a doc-
tor. We’ll hide it."

“I won’t let you do such a
thing.”

She faced him angrily. “Oh,
this whole rotten world!” she
choked. Suddenly she turned and
fled out of the building. She was
sobbing.

N ORRIS climbed slowly down
from the truck and wandered
on into the house. She was not
in the kitchen nor the living room.
The bedroom door was locked.
He shrugged and went to sit on

the sofa. The television set was
on, and a newscast was coming
from a local station.

“. . . we were unable to get
shots of the body,” the announcer
was saying. “But here is a view
of the Georges residence. I’ll
switch you to our mobile unit in
Sherman II, James Duncan re-
porting."

Norris frowned with bewilder-
ment as the scene shifted to a
two-story plasticoid house among
the elm trees. It was after dark,
but the mobile unit’s powerful
floodlights made daylight of the
house and its yard and the police
'copters sitting in a side lot. An
ambulance was parked in the
street. A new voice came on the
audio.

“This is James Duncan, ladies
and gentlemen, speaking to you
from our mobile unit in front of
the late Doctor Hiram Georges'
residence just west of Sherman
II. We are waiting for the
stretcher to be brought out. and
Police Chief Erskine Miler is
standing here beside me to give
us a word about the case. Doctor
Georges’ death has shocked the
community deeply. Most of you
local listeners have known him
for many years — some of you
have depended upon his services
as a family physician. He was a
man well known, well loved. But
now let’s listen to Chief Miler.”

Norris sat breathing quickly.

40

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

There could scarcely be two Doc-
tor Georges in the community,
but only this morning . . .

A growling drawl came from
the audio. “This’s Chief Miler
speaking, folks. I just want to
say that if any of you know the
whereabouts of a Mrs. Sarah
Glubbes, call me immediately.
She’s wanted for questioning.”
“Thank you. Chief. This is
James Duncan again. I’ll review
the facts for you briefly again,
ladies and gentlemen. At seven
o’clock, less than an hour ago, a
woman — allegedly Mrs. Glubbes
— burst into Doctor Georges’ din-
ing room while the family was at
dinner. She was brandishing a
pistol and screaming, 'You stole
my baby! You gave me the wrong
baby! Where’s my baby?’

“When the doctor assured her
that there was no other baby, she
fired, shattering his salad plate.
Glancing off it, the bullet pierced
his heart. The woman fled. A pe-
culiar feature of the case is that
Mrs. Glubbes, the alleged in-
truder, has no baby. Just a min-
ute — just a minute — here comes
the stretcher now.”

Norris turned the set off and
went to call the police. He told
them what he knew and prom-
ised to make himself available
for questioning if it became nec-
essary. When he turned from the
phone, Anne was standing in the
bedroom doorway. She might

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

have been crying a little, but she
concealed it well.

“What was all that?” she
asked.

“Woman killed a man. I hap-
pened to know the motive.”

“What was it?”

“Neutroid trouble.”

“You meet up with a lot of
unpleasantness in this business,
don’t you?”

“Lot of unpleasant emotions
tangled up in it,” he admitted.

“I know. Well, supper’s been
keeping hot for two hours. Shall
we eat?”

fT'HEY went to bed at midn'ght,
but it was after one when he
became certain that his wife was
asleep. He lay in darkness for a
time, listening to her even breath-
ing. Then he cautiously eased
himself out of bed and tiptoed
quietly through the door, carry-
ing his shoes and trousers. He
put them on in the kitchen and
stole silently out to the kennels.
A half moon hung low in a misty
sky, and the wind was chilly out
of the north.

He went into the neutroid room
and flicked a switch. A few sleepy
chatters greeted the light.

One at a time, he awoke twen-
ty-three of the older doll-things
and carried them to a large glass-
walled compartment. These were
the long-time residents: they

knew him well, and they came

41

with him willingly — like children
after the Piper of Hamlin. When
he had gotten them in the glass
chamber, he sealed the door and
turned on the gas. The conveyor
would automatically carry them
on to the incinerator.

Now he had enough cages for
the Bermuda-K-99s.

He hurriedly quit the kennels
and went to sit on the back steps.
His eyes were burning, but the
thought of tears made him sicker.
It was like an assassin crying
while he stabbed his victim. It
was more honest just to retch.

When he tiptoed back inside,
he got as far as the hall. Then he
saw Anne’s small figure framed
in the bedroom window, silhou-
etted against the moonlit yard.
She had slipped into her negligee
and was sitting on the narrow
windowstool, staring silently out
at the dull red tongue of exhaust
gases from the crematory’s chim-
ney.

Norris backed away. He went
to the parlor and lay down on
the couch.

After a while he heard her
come into the room. She paused
in the center of the rug, a fragile
mist in the darkness. He turned
his face away and waited for the
rasping accusation. But soon she
came to sit on the edge of the
sofa. She said nothing. Her hand
crept out and touched his cheelc
lightly. He felt her cool finger-

tips trace a soft line up his tem-
ple.

“It’s all right, Terry,” she
whispered.

He kept his face averted. Her
fingers traced a last stroke. Then
she padded quietly back to the
bedroom. He lay awake until
dawn, knowing that it would
never be all right, neither the
creating nor the killing, until he
— and the whole world — com-
pletely lost sanity. And then ev-
erything would be all right, only
it still wouldn’t make sense.

A NNE was asleep when he left
the house. The night mist had
gathered' into clouds that made a
gloomy morning of it. He drove
on out in the kennel-truck, mean-
ing to get the rest of the Ber-
muda-K-99s so • that he could
begin his testing.

Still he felt the night’s guilt,
like a sticky dew that refused to
depart with morning. Why should
he have to kill the things? The
answer was obvious. Society
manufactured them because kill-
ing them was permissible. Human
babies could not be disposed of
when the market became glutted.
The neutroids offered solace to
childless women, kept them satis-
fied with a restricted birth rate.
And why a restricted birth rate?
Because by keeping the popula-
tion at five billions, the Federa-
tion could insure a decent living

42

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

standard for everybody.

Where there was giving, Nor-
ris thought glumly, there was
also taking away. Maft had al-
ways deluded himself by thinking
that he "created,” but he created
nothing. He thought that he had
* created — with his medical science

and his end to wars — a longer life
for the individual. But he found
that he had only taken the lives
of the unborn and added them to
the years of the aged. Man now
had a life expectancy of eighty,
except that he had damn little
chance of being born to enjoy it.

A neutroid filled the cradle in
his stead. A neutroid that never
ate as much, or grew up to be
unemployed. A neutroid could be
killed if things got tough, but
could still satisfy a woman’s crav-
ing to mother something small.

Norris gave up thinking about
it Eventually he would have to
adjust to it. He was already ad-
justed to a world that loved the
artificial mutants as children. He
had been brought up in it. Emo-
tion came in conflict with the
grim necessities of his job. Some-
how he would have to love them
in the parlor and kill them in the
kennel. It was only a matter of
adjustment.

A T noon, he brought back an-
other dozen K-99s and in-
stalled them in his cages. There
had been two highly reluctant

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

mothers, but he skipped them
and left the seizure to the local
authorities. Yates had already
brought in the three from yester-
day.

"No more scratches?” Anne
asked him while they ate lunch.
They did not speak of the night’s
mass-disposal.

Norris smiled mechanically. "I
learned my lesson yesterday. If
they bare their fangs, I get out
without another word. Funny
thing though — I’ve got a feeling
one mother pulled a fast one.”
"What happened?”

"Well, I told her what I wanted
and why. She didn’t like it, but
she let me in. I started out with
her newt, but she wanted a re-
ceipt. So I gave her one; took the
serial number off my checklist.
She looked at it and said, ‘Why,
that’s not Chichi’s number!’ I
looked at the newt’s foot, and
sure enough it wasn’t. I had to
leave it. It was a K-99, but not
even from Bermuda.”

"I thought they were all regis-
tered,” Anne said.

"They are. I told her she had
the wrong neutroid, but she got
mad. Went and got the sales re-
ceipt. It checked with her newt,
and it was from O’Reilley’s pet.
shop — right place, wrong num-
ber. I just don’t get it.”

"Nothing to worry about, is it
Terry?”

He looked at her peculiarly.

41

**Ever think what might happen
if someone started a black market
in neutroids?”

They finished the meal in si-
lence. After lunch he went out
again to gather up the rest of the
group. By four o’clock, he had
gotten all that were to be had
without the threat of a warrant.
The screams and pleas and tears
of the owners left him gloomily
despising himself.

If Delmont’s falsification had
been widespread, he might have
to turn several of the thirty-five
over to central lab for dissection
and ultimate destruction. That
would bring the murderous wrath
of their owners down upon him.
He began to understand why bio-
inspectors were frequently shifted
from one territory to another.

On the way home, he stopped
in Sherman II to check on the
missing number. It was the
largest of the Sherman communi-
ties, covering fifty blocks of com-
mercial buildings. He parked in
the outskirts and took a sidewalk
escalator toward O’Reilley’s ad-
dress.

It was on a dingy sidestreet,
reminiscent of past centuries, a
street of small bars and bowling
• alleys and cigar stores. There was
even a shop with three gold balls
above the entrance, but the place
was now an antique store. A light
mist was falling when he stepped
off the escalator and stood in

front of the pet shop. A sign hung
out over the sidewalk, an-
nouncing :

J. “DOGGY’’ O’REILLEY
PETS FOR SALE

DUMB BLONDES AND GOLDFISH
MUTANTS FOR THE CHILDLESS
BUY A BUNDLE OF JOY

Norris frowned at the sign and
wandered inside. The place was
warm and gloomy. He wrinkled
his nose at the strong musk of
animal odors. O'Reilley’s was not
a shining example of cleanliness.

Somewhere a puppy was yap-
ping, and a parrot croaked the
lyrics of A Chimp to Cal! My
Own, which Norris recognized
as the theme song of a popular
soap-opera about a lady evolvo-
tron operator.

He paused briefly by a tank of
silk-draped goldfish. The shop
had a customer. An elderly lady
was haggling with a wizened
manager over the price of a half
grown second-hand dog-F. She
was shaking her last dog’s death
certificate under his nose and de-
manding a guarantee of the dog's
alleged F-5 intelligence. The old
man offered to swear on a Bible,
but he demurred when it came
to swearing on a ledger.

The dog was saying, “Don’ sell
me, Dada. Don* sell me.”

Norris smiled sardonically to
himself. The non-human pets
were smarter than the neutroids.

44

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

A K-108 could speak a dozen
words, and a K-99 never got far-
ther than ‘‘mamma," “pappa,”
and “cookie.” Anthropos was
afraid to make the quasi-humans
too intelligent, lest sentimental-
ists proclaim them really human.

He wandered on toward the
back of the building, pausing
briefly by the cash register to in-
spect O’Reilley’s license, which
hung in a dusty frame on the wall
behind the counter. “James Fal-
lon O’Reilley . . . authorized
dealer in mutant animals ... all
non-predatory mammals includ-
ing champanzee-K series ... li-
cense expires June 1, 2235.”

It seemed in order, although
the expiration date was approach-
ing. He started toward a bank of
neutroid cages along the opposite
wall, but O’Reilley was mincing
across the floor to meet him. The
customer had gone. The little
manager wore an elfan profes-
sional smile, and his bald head
bobbled in a welcoming nod.

"Good day, sir, good day!
May I show you a dwarf kan-
garoo, or a — ” He stopped and
adjusted his spectacles. He
blinked and peered as Norris
flashed his badge. His smile
waned.

“I’m Agent Norris, Mr. O’Reil-
ley. Called you yesterday for that
rundown on K-99 sales.”

O’Reilley looked suddenly ner-
vous. “Oh, yes. Find ’em all?”

Norris shook his head. “No.
That’s why I stopped by. There’s
some mistake on — ” he glanced
at his list — “on K-99-LJZ-351.
Let’s check it again.”

O’Reilley seemed to cringe. “No
mistake. I gave you the buyer’i
name.”

“She has a different number.’*
"Can I help it if she traded
with somebody?”

“She didn’t. She bought it here.
I saw the receipt.”

“Then she traded with one of
my other customers!” snapped
the old man.

“Two of your customers have
the same name — Adelia Schultz?
Not likely. Let’s see your dupli-
cate receipt book.”

O’Reilley’s wrinkled face set it-
self into a stubborn mask.
“Doubt if it’s still around.”

Norris frowned. “Look, pop,
I’ve had a rough day. I could
start naming some things around
here that need fixing — sanitary
violations and such. Not to men-
tion that sign — ‘dumb blondes.*
They outlawed that one when
they executed that shyster doctor
for shooting K-108s full of
growth hormones, trying to raise
himself a harem to sell. Besides,
you’re required to keep sales rec-
ords until they’ve been micro-
filmed. There hasn’t been a
microfilming since July.”

The wrinkled face twitched
with frustrated anger. O’Reilley

shuffled to the counter while
Norris followed. He got a fat
binder from under the register
and started toward a wooden
stairway.

“Where you going?” Norris
called.

“Get my old glasses,” the man-
ager grumbled. “Can’t see
through these new things.”

“Leave the book here and I'll
check it,” Norris offered.

But O’Reilley was already limp-
ing quickly up the stairs. He
seemed not to hear. He shut the
door behind him, and Norris
heard the lock click. The bio-
agent waited. Again the thought
of a black market troubled him.
Unauthorized neutroids could
mean lots of trouble.

'IT'IVE minutes passed before the
old man came down the stairs.
He said nothing as he placed the
book on the counter. Norris no-
ticed that his hands were trem-
bling as he shuffled through the
pages.

“Let me look,” said the bio-
agent.

O’Reilley stepped reluctantly
aside. Norris had memorized the
owner's receipt number, and he
found the duplicate quickly. He
stared at it silently. “Mrs. Adele
Schultz . . . chimpanzee-K-99-
L-JZ-351." It was the number of
the animal he wanted, but it
wasn’t the number on Mrs.

Schultz’s neutroid nor on her
original copy of the receipt.

He held the book up to his eye
and aimed across the page at the
light. O’Reilley’s breathing be-
came audible. Norris put the
book down, folded two thick-
nesses of handkerchief over the
blade of his pocketknife, and ran
it down the seam between the
pages. He took the sheet he
wanted, folded it, and stowed it
in his vest pocket. O’Reilley was
stuttering angrily.

Norris turned to face him cold-
ly. “Nice erasure job, for a car-
bon copy.”

The old man prepared himself
for exploding. Norris quietly put
on his hat.

“See you in court, O’Reilley.”

"Wait!"

Norris turned. “Okay, I’m
waiting.”

The old man sagged into a de-
flated bag of wrinkles. “Let’s sit
down first,” he said weakly.

Norris followed him up the
stairs and into a dingy parlor.
The tiny apartment smelled of
boiled cabbage and sweat. An
orange-haired neutroid lay asleep
on a small rug in a corner. Norris
knelt beside it and read the tat-
tooed figures on the sole of its
left foot— K-99-LJZ-351. Some-
how he was not surprised.

When he stood up, the old man
was sagged in an ancient arm-
chair, his head propped on a

4 *

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

hand that covered his eyes.

“Lots of good explanations, I
guess?” Norris asked quietly.
“Not good ones.”

“Let’s hear them, anyway.”
O’Reilley sighed and straight-
ened. He blinked at the inspector
and spoke in a monotone. “My
missus died five years back. We
were class-B — allowed one child
of our own — if we could have one.
We couldn’t. But since we were
class-B, we couldn’t own a neu-
troid either. Sorta got around it
by running a pet shop. Mary —
she always cried when we sold a
neut. I sorta felt bad about it
myself. But we never did swipe
one. Last year this Bermuda
shipment come in. I sold most of
'em pretty quick, but Peony here
—-she was kinda puny. Seemed
like nobody wanted her. Kept her
around so long, I got attached to
her. ’Fraid somebody’d buy her.
So I faked the receipt and moved
her up here.”

“That all?”

The old man nodded.

“Ever done this before?”

He shook his head.

Norris let a long silence pass
while he struggled with himself.
At last he said, "Your license
could be revoked, you know.”

“I know.”

Norris ground his fist thought-
fully in his palm and stared at
the sleeping doll-thing. "I’ll take
your books home with me to-

night,” he said. “I want to make
a complete check for similar
changes. Any objections?”

"None. It’s the only trick I’ve
pulled, so help me.”

“If that’s true, I won’t report
you. We’ll just attach a correc-
tion to that page, and you’ll put
the newt back in stock.” He hesi-
tated. “Providing it’s not a devi-
ant. I’ll have to take it in for
examination.”

A choking sound came from
the armchair. Norris stared curi-
ously at the old man. Moisture
was creeping in the wrinkles
around his eyes.

"Something the matter?”

O’Reilley nodded. “She’s a de-
viant.”

"How do you know?”

T*he dealer pulled himself erect
and hobbled to the sleeping neu-
troid. He knelt beside it and
stroked a small bare shoulder
gently.

"Peony,” he breathed. “Peony,
girl — wake up.”

Its fluffy tail twitched for a
moment. Then it sat up, rubbing
its eyes and yawning. It looked
normal, like a two-year-old girl
with soft brown eyes. It pouted
at O’Reilley for awakening it. It
aaw Norris and ignored him, ap-
parently too sleepy to be fright-
ened.

"Hows my Peony-girl?” the
dealer purred.

It licked its lips. "Wanna g’ass

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

47

44

OAtAXY SCIENCE FICTION

o’ water, Daddy,” it said drowsily.

Norris caught his breath. No
K-99 should be able to make a
speech that long, even when it
reached the developmental limit.
He glanced at O’Reilley. The old
man nodded slowly, then went to
the kitchen for a glass of water.
She drank greedily and eyed her
foster- pa rent.

“Daddy crying.”

O'Reilley glowered at her and
blew his nose solemnly. “Don't
be silly, child. Now get your coat
on and go with Mister Norris.
He’s taking you for a ride in his
truck. Won’t that be fine?”

“I don’t want to. I wanna stay
here.”

“Peeony/ On with you!”

She brought her coat and
stared at Norris with childish
contempt. “Can Daddy go, too?”
“Be on your way!” growled
O’Reilley. “I got things to do.”
“We’re coming back?”

“Of course you’re coming back!
Git now — or shall I get my
spanking switch?”

Peony strolled out the door
ahead of Norris.

“Oh, inspector, would you be
punching the night latch for me
as you leave the shop? I think
I’ll be closing for the day.”
Norris paused at the head of
the stairs, looking back at the old
man. But O’Reilley closed him-
self inside and the lock clicked.
The agent sighed and glanced

down at the small being beside
him.

“Want me to carry you,
Peony?”

She sniffed disdainfully. She
hopped upon the banister and
slid down ahead of him. Her
motor -responses were typically
neutroid — something like a
monkey, something like a squir-
rel. But there was no question
about it; she was one of Del-
mont’s deviants. He wondered
what they would do with her in
central lab. He could remember
no instance of an intelligent mu-
tant getting into the market

Somehow he could not consign
her to a cage in the back of the
truck. He drove home while she
sat beside him on the front seat.
She watched the scenery and re-
mained aloof, occasionally look-
ing around to ask, “Can we go
back now?”

Norris could not bring himself
to answer.

W HEN he got home, he led her
into the house and stopped
in the hall to call Chief Franklin.
The operator said, “His office
doesn’t answer, sir. Shall I give
you the robot locator?”

Norris hesitated. His wife came
into the hall. She stooped to grin
at Peony, and Peony said, “Do
you live here, too?” Anne gasped
and sat on the floor to stare.
Norris said, “Cancel the calL

49

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

It’ll wait till tomorrow.” He
dropped the phone quickly.

"What series is it?” Anne asked
excitedly. "I never saw one that
could talk.”

"It is a she." he said. "And
she’s a series unto herself. Some
of Delmont’s work.”

Peony was looking from one to
the other of them with a baffled
face. "Can we go back now?”
Norris shook his head. ^‘You’re
going to spend the night with us.
Peony,” he said softly. “Your
daddy wants you to.”

His wife was watching him
thoughtfully. Norris looked aside
and plucked nervously at a cor*-
ner of the telephone book. Sud-
denly she caught Peony’s hand
and led her toward the kitchen.

"Come on, baby, let’s go find
a cookie or something.”

Norris started out the front
door, but in a moment Anne was
back. She caught at his collar
and tugged. "Not so fast!”

He turned to frown. Her face
accused him at a six-inch range.

"Just what do you think you’re
going to do with that child?”

He was silent for a long time..
"You know what I’m supposed
to do.”

Her unchanging stare told him
that she wouldn't accept any eva-
sions. “I heard you trying to get
your boss on the phone.”

"I canceled it. didn’t I?”

"Until tomorrow.”

He worked his hands nervous-
ly. "I don’t know, honey — I just
don’t know.”

"They’d kill her at central lab,
wouldn’t they?”

"Well, they’d need her as evi-
dence in Delmont’s trial.”

“They’d kill her, wouldn't
they?”

“When it was over — it’s hard to
say. The law says deviants must
be destroyed, but — ”

“Well?”

He paused miserably. “We’ve
got a few days to think about it,
honey. I don’t have to make my
report for a week.”

He sidled out the door. Looking
back, he saw the hard determina-
tion in her eyes as she watched
him. He knew somehow that he
was going to lose either his job
or his wife. Maybe both. He shuf-
fled moodily out to the kennels to
care for his charges.

A GREAT silence filled the
house during the evening.
Supper was a gloomy meal. Only
Peony spoke; she sat propped on
two cushions at the table, using
her silver with remarkable skill.

Norris wondered about her in-
telligence. Her chronological age
was ten months; her physical age
was about two years; but her
mental age seemed to compare
favorably with at least a three
year old.

Once he reached across the ta-

30

ALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

blc to touch her forehead. She
eyed him curiously for a moment
and continued eating. Her tem-
perature was warmer than hu-
man, but not too warm for the
normally high neutroid metabo-
lism — somewhere around 101®.
The rapid rate of maturation
made I.Q. determination impos-
sible.

“You’ve got a good appetite,
Peony.” Anne remarked.

“I like Daddy’s cooking bet-
ter,” she said with innocent blunt-
ness. “When can I go home?”

Anne looked at Norris and
waited for an answer. He man-
aged a smile at the flame-haired
cherub. “Tell you what we’ll do.
I’ll call your daddy on the phone
and let you say hello. Would you
like that?”

She giggled, then nodded. “Uh-
huh! When can we do it?”

“Later.”

Anne tapped her fork thought-
fully against the edge of her
plate. “I think we better have a
nice long talk tonight, Terry,” she
said.

“Is there anything to talk
about?” He pushed the plate
away. “I’m not hungry.”

TTE left the table and went to
sit in darkness by the parlor
window, while his wife did the
dishes and Peony played with a
handful of walnuts on the kitchen
floor.

He watched the scattered lights
of the suburbs and tried to think
of nothing. The lights were peace-
ful, glimmering through the trees.

Once there had been no lights,
only the flickering campfires of
hunters shivering in the forest,
when the world was young and
sparsely planted with the seed of
Man. Now the world was infected
with his lights, and with the
sound of his engines and the roar
of his rockets. He had inherited
the Earth and had filled it — too
full.

There was no escape. His rock-
ets had touched two of the plan-
ets, but even the new worlds
offered no sanctuary for the un-
born. Man could have babies — if
allowed — faster than he could
build ships to haul them away.
He could only choose between a
higher death rate and a lower
birth rate.

And unborn children were not
eligible to vote when Man made
his choice.

His choice had robbed his wife
of a biological need, and so he
made a disposable baby with
which to pacify her. He gave it a
tail and only half a mind, so that
it could not be confused with his
own occasional children.

But Peony had only the tail.
Still she was not born of the seed
of Man. Strange seed, out of the
jungle, warped toward the human
pole, but still not human.

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

51

Tyr ORRIS heard a car approach-
' ing in the street. Its head-
lights swung along the curb, and
it slowed to a halt in front of the
house. A tall, slender man in a
dark suit climbed out and stood
for a moment, staring toward the
house. He was only a shadow in
the faint street light. Norris could
lot place him. Suddenly the man
napped on a flashlight and
played it over the porch. Norris
caught his breath and darted to-
ward the kitchen. Anne stared at
him questioningly, while Peony
peered up from her play.

He stooped beside her. "Listen,
chileV” he said quickly. "Do you
know what a neutroid is?”

She nodded slowly. "They play
in cages. They don’t talk.”

"Can you pretend you’re a neu-
troid?”

"I can play neutroid. I play
neutroid with Daddy sometimes,
when people come to see him. He
gives me candy when I play it.
'•Vhen can I go home?”

"Not now. There’s a man com-
ing to see us. Can you play neu-
troid for me? We’ll give you lots
of candy. Just don’t talk. Pre-
tend you’re asleep.”

"Now?”

"Now.” He heard the door
chimes ringing.

"Who is it?” Anne asked.

"I don’t know. He may have
the wrong house. Take Peony in
the bedroom. I’ll answer it.”

His wife caught the child-thing
up in her arms and hurried away.
The chimes sounded again. Nor-
ris stalked down the hall and
switched on the porch-light. The
visitor was an elderly man, erect
in his black suit and radiating
dignity. As he smiled and'nodded,
Norris noticed his collar. A cler-
gyman. Must have the wrong
place, Norris thought.

“Are you Inspector Norris?”
The agent nodded, not daring
to talk.

• “I’m Father Paulson. I’m call-
ing on behalf of a James O’Reil-
ley. I think you know him. May
I come in?”

Grudgingly, Norris swung open
the door. “If you can stand the
smell of paganism, come on in.”
The priest chuckled politely.
Norris led him to the parlor and
turned on the light. He waved
toward a chair.

"What’s this all about? Does
O’Reilley want something?”
Paulson smiled at the inspec-
tor’s brusque tone and settled
himself in the chair. "O’Reilley is
a sick man,” he said.

The inspector frowned. "He
didn’t look it to me.”

"Sick of heart, Inspector. He
came to me for advice. I couldn’t
give him any. He told me the
story — about this Peony. I came
to have a lodk at her, if I may.”
Norris said nothing for a mo-
ment. O’Reilley had better keep

52

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

his mouth shut, he thought, espe-
cially around clergymen. Most of
them took a dim view of the
whole mutant business.

“I didn’t think you’d associate
with O’Reilley,” he said. “I
thought you people excommuni-
cated everybody that owns a neu-
troid. O’Reilley owns a whole
shopful.”

“That’s true. But who knows?
He might get rid of his shop. May
I see this neutroid?”

“Why?”

“O’Reilley said it could talk. Is
that true or is O'Reilley suffering
delusions? That’s what I came to
find out.”

“Neutroids don’t talk.”

The priest stared at him for a
time, then nodded slowly, as if
approving something. “You can
rest assured,” he said quietly,
“that I’ll say nothing of this visit,
that I’ll speak to no one about
this creature.”

Norris looked up to see his wife
watching them from the doorway.

“Get Peony,” he said.

“It’s true then?” Paulson asked.

“I’ll let you see for yourself.”

Anne brought the small child-
thing into the room and set her
on the floor. Peony saw the vis-
itor, chattered with fright, and
bounded upon the back of the
sofa to sit and scold. She was
playing her game well, Norris
thought.

The priest watched her with

quiet interest. “Hello, little one.**
Peony babbled gibberish. Paul-
son kept his eyes on her every
movement. Suddenly he said, “I
just saw your daddy, Peony. He
wanted me to talk to you.”

Her babbling ceased. The spell
of the game was ended. Her eyes
went sober. Then she looked at
Norris and pouted. “I don't want
any candy. I wanna go home.”
Norris let out a deep breath. “I
didn't say she couldn’t talk," he
pointed out sullenly.

“I didn’t say you did,” said
Paulson. “You invited me to see
for myself.”

Anne confronted the clergy-
man. “What do you want?” she
demanded. “The child’s death?
Did you come to assure yourself
that she’d be turned over to the
lab? I know your kind! You’d do
anything to get rid of neutroids!”
“I came only to assure myself
that O’Reilley’s sane,” Paulson
told her.

“I don’t believe you,” she
snapped.

He stared at her in wounded
surprise; then he chuckled. “Peo-
ple used to trust the cloth. Ah,
well. Listen, my child, you have
us wrong. We say it’s evil to cre-
ate the creatures. We say also
that it’s evil to destroy them after
they’re made. Not murder, exact-
ly, but — mockery of life, perhaps.
It’s the entire institution that’s

53

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

evil. Do you understand? As for
this small creature of O’Reilley’s
— well, I hardly know what to
make of her, but I certainly
wouldn’t wish her — uh —
d-e-a-d.”

Peony was listening solemnly
to the conversation. Somehow
NorriSi sensed a disinterested
friend, if not an ally, in the
priest. He looked at his wife. Her
eyes were still suspicious.

“Tell me, Father,” Norris
asked, “if you were in my posi-
tion, what would you do?”

Paulson fumbled with a button
of his coat and stared at the floor
while he pondered. “I wouldn’t
be in your position, young man.
But if I were, I think I’d withhold
her from my superiors. I’d also
quit my job and go away.”

It wasn’t what Norris wanted
to hear. But his wife’s expression
suddenly changed; she looked at
the priest with a new interest.
“And give Peony back to O’Reil-
ley,” she added.

“I shouldn’t be giving you ad-
vice,” he said unhappily. “I’m
duty-bound to ask O’Reilley to
give up his business and have
nothing further to do with neu-
troids.”

“But Peony’s human," Anne
argued. “She’s different .”

“I fail to agree.”

“What!” Anne confronted him
again. “What makes you hu-
man?”

F

“A soul, my child.”

Anne put her hands on her hips
and leaned forward to glare down
at him like something unwhole-
some. “Can you put a voltmeter
between your ears and measure
it?”

The priest looked helplessly at
Norris.

“ No!” she said. "And you can’t
do it to Peony either!”

“Perhaps I had better go,”
Paulson said to his host.

Norris sighed. “Maybe you bet-
ter, Padre. You found out what
you wanted to know.”

Anne stalked angrily out of the
room, her dark hair swishing like
a battle-pennant with each step.
When the priest was gone, Norris
picked up the child and held her
in his lap. She was shivering with
fright, as if she understood what
had been said. Love them in the
parlor, he thought, and kill them
in the kennels.

“Can I go home? Doesn’t Dad-
dy want me any more?”

“Sure he does. baby. You just
be good and everything'll be all
right.”

N ORRIS felt a bad taste in his
mouth as he laid her sleeoing
body on the sofa half an hour
later. Everything was all wrong
and it promised to remain that
way. He couldn’t give her back to
O’Reilley, because she wcdcl be
caught again when the auditor

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

came to microfilm the records.
And he certainly couldn’t keep
her, himself — not with other Bio-
agents wandering in and out every
few days. She could not be con-
cealed in a world where there
were no longer any sparsely pop-
ulated regions, There was noth-
ing to do but obey the law and
turn her over to Franklin’s lab.

He closed his eyes and shud-
dered. If he did that, he could do
anything — stomach anything —
adapt to any vicious demands
society made of him. If he sent
the child away to die, he would
know that he had attained an
“objective” outlook. And what
more could he want from life than
adaptation and objectivity?

Well — his wife, for one thing.

He left the child on the sofa,
turned out the light, and wan-
dered into the bedroom. Anne was
in bed, reading. She did not look
up when she said, “Terry, if you
let that baby be destroyed, I’ll...”

“Don’t say it,” he cut in. “Any
time you feel like leaving, you
just leave. But don’t threaten me
with it.”

She watched him silently for a
moment. Then she handed him
the newspaper she had been read-
ing. It was folded around an ad-
vertisement.

BIOLOGISTS WANTED

by

ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED
for

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

Evolvotron Operator!

Incubator Tenders
Nursery Supervisors
Laboratory Personnel
in

NEW ATLANTA PLANT
Call or write. Personnel Mgr.
ANTHROPOS INC.

Atlanta, Ga.

Note: Secur Work Department
release from present job
before applying.

He looked at Anne curiously.
“So?”

She shrugged. “So there’s a job,
if you want to quit this one.”
“What’s this got to do with
Peony, if anything?”

“We could take her with us.’*
“Not a chance,” he said. “Do
you suppose a talking neutroid
would be any safer there?”

She demanded angrily, “Why
should they want to destroy her?”
Norris sat on the edge of the
bed and ^hought about it. “No
particular ' individual wants to,
honey. It’s the law.”

“But why?"

“Generally, because deviants
are unknown quantities. They
can be dangerous.”

“That child — dangerous?”
“Dangerous to a concept, a
vague belief that Man is some-
thing special, a closed tribe. And
in a practical sense, she’s dan-
gerous because -she’s not a neuter.
The Federation insists that all
mutants be neuter and infertile,
so it can control the mutant pop-
ulation. If mutants started repro-

55

ducing, that could be a real threat
in a world whose economy is so
delicately balanced.”

“Well, you're not going to let
them have her, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” he grumbled.

^"\N the following day, he went
down to police headquarters
to sign a statement concerning
the motive in Doctor Georges’
murder. As a result, Mrs. Glubbes
was put away in the psycho-
ward.

“It’s funny, Norris,” said Chief
Miler, ‘‘what people’ll do over a
neutroid. Like Mrs. Glubbes
thinking that newt was her own.
I sure don’t envy you your job.
It’s a wonder you don’t get your
head blown off. You must have
an iron stomach.”

Norris signed the paper and
looked up briefly. “Sure, Chief.
Just a matter of adaptation.”
“Guess so.” Miler patted his
paunch and yawned. “How you
coming on this Delmont business?
Picked up any deviants yet?”
Norris laid down the pen
abruptly. “No! Of course not!
What made you think I had?”
Miler stopped in the middle of
his yawn and stared at Norris
curiously. “Touchy, aren’t you?”
he asked thoughtfully. “When I
get that kind of answer from a
prisoner, I right away start
thinking — "

“Save it for your interrogation

room,” Norris growled. He
stalked quickly out of the office
while Chief Miler tapped his pen-
cil absently and stared after him.

He was angry with himself for
his indecision. He had to make
a choice and make it soon. He
was climbing in his car when a
voice called after him from the
building. He looked back to see
Chief Miler trotting down the
steps, his pudgy face glistening
in the morning sun.

"Hey, Norris! Your missus is
on the phone. Says it’s urgent.”

Norris went back grudgingly.
A premonition of trouble gripped
him.

“Phone’s right there,” the chief
said, pointing with a stubby
thumb.

The receiver lay on the desk,
and he could hear it saying,
“Hello — hello — ” before he picked
it up.

“Anne? What’s the matter?”

Her voice was low and strained,
trying to be cheerful. “Nothing's
the matter, darling. We have a
visitor. Come right home, will
you? Chief Franklin’s here.”

It knocked the breath out of
him. He felt himself going white.
He glanced at Chief Miler, calm-
ly sitting nearby.

“Can you tell me about it
now?” he asked her.

“Not very well. Please hurry
home. He wants to talk to you
about the K-99s.”

56

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

“Have the two of them met?”
“Yes, they have.” She paused,
as if listening to him speak, then
said, “Oh, that ! The game, honey
•—remember the game?"

“Good,” he grunted. “I’ll be
right there.” He hung up and
started out.

“Troubles?” the chief called
after him.

“Just a sick newt.” he said, “if
it’s any of your business.”

C HIEF Franklin’s helicopter
was parked in the empty lot
next door when Norris drove up
in front of the house. The official
heard the truck and came out on
the porch to watch his agent walk
up the path. His lanky, emaciated
body was loosely draped in gray
tweeds, and his thin hawk face
was a dark and solemn mask. He
was a middle-aged man, his skin
seamed with wrinkles, but his hair
was still abnormally black. He
greeted Norris with a slow, al-
most sarcastic nod.

“I see you don’t read your
mail. If you’d looked at it. you’d
have known I was coming. I
wrote you yesterday.”

“Sorry, Chief, I didn’t have a
chance to stop by the message
office this morning.”

Franklin grunted. “Then you
don’t know why I’m here?”

“No, sir.”

“Let’s sit out on the porch,”
Franklin said, and perched his

bony frame on the railing. “We’ve
got to get busy on these Ber-
muda-K-99s, Norris. How many
have you got?”

“Thirty-four, I think.”

“I counted thirty-five.”
“Maybe you’re right. I — I’m
not sure.”

“Found any deviants yet?”
“Uh — I haven't run any testa
yet, sir.”

Franklin’s voice went sharp.
“Do you need a test to know
when a neutroid is talking a blue
streak?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just this. We’ve found at least
a dozen of Delmont’s units that
have mental ages that correspond
to their physical age. What’s
more, they’re functioning females,
and they have normal pituitaries.
Know what that means?”

“They won’t take an age-set
then,” Norris said. “They’ll grow
to adulthood.”

“And have children.”

Norris frowned. “How can they
have children? There aren’t any
males.”

“No? Guess what we found in
one of Delmont’s incubators.”
“Not a — ”

“Yeah. And it’s probably not
the first. This business about pad-
ding his quota is baloney! Hell,
man, he was going to start his
own black market! He finally ad-
mitted it, after twenty-hours*
questioning without a letup. He

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

57

was going to raise them, Norris.
He was stealing them right out
of the incubators before an in-
spector ever saw them. The K-99s
— the numbered ones — are just
the ones he couldn’t get back.
Lord knows how many males he’s
got hidden away someplace!”
“What’re you going to do?”
u Do! What do you think we’ll
do? Smash the whole scheme,
that’s what! Find the deviants
and kill them. We’ve got enough
now for lab work.”

Norris felt sick. He looked
away. “I suppose you’ll want me
to handle the destruction, then.”
Franklin gave him a suspicious
glance. “Yes, but why do you
ask? You have found one, haven’t
you?”

“Yes, sir,” he admitted.

A moan came from the door-
way. Norris looked up to see his
wife’s white face staring at him
in horror, just before she turned
and fled into the house. Frank-
lin’s bony head lifted.

“I see,” he said. “We have a
fixation on our deviant. Very
well, Norris, I’ll take care of it
myself. Where is it?”

“In the house, sir. My wife’s
bedroom.”

“Get it.”

N ORRIS went glumly in' the
house. The bedroom door
was locked.

“Honey,” he called softly.

SI

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

>

There was no answer. He knocked
gently.

A key turned in the lock, and
his wife stood facing him. Her
eyes were weeping ice.

“Stay back!” she said. He
could see Peony behind her, sit-
ting in the center of the floor and
looking mystified.

Then he saw his own service
revolver in her trembling hand.

“Look, honey — it’s me.”

She shook her head. "No, it’s
not you. It’s a man that wants

to kill a little girl. Stay back.”

“You'd shoot, wouldn’t you?”
he asked softly.

“Try to come in and find out,” /
she invited.

“Let me have Peony.”

She laughed, her eyes bright
with hate. “I wonder where Terry
went. I guess he died. Or adapted.

I guess I’m a widow now. Stay
back, Mister, or I’ll kill you.”

Norris smiled. "Okay, I’ll stay
back. But the gun isn’t loaded.”

She tried to slam the door; he

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

caught it with his foot. She struck
at him with the pistol, but he
dragged it out of her hand. He
pushed her aside and held her
against the wall while she clawed
at his arm.

“Stop it!” he said. “Nothing
will happen to Peony, I promise
you!” He glanced back at the
child-thing, who had begun to
cry.

Anne subsided a little, staring
at him angrily.

“There’s no other way out,
honey. Just trust me. She’ll be
all right.”

Breathing quickly, Anne stood
aside and watched him. “Okay,
Terry. But if you’re lying — tell
me, is it murder to kill a man to
protect a child?”

Norris lifted Peony in his arms.
Her wailing ceased, but her tail
switched nervously.

“In whose law book?” he asked
his wife. “I was wondering the
same thing.” Norris started to-
ward the door. “By the way — find
my instruments while I’m out-
side, will you?”

“The dissecting instruments?”
■she gasped. “If you intend — ”

“Let’s call them surgical in-
struments, shall we? And get
them sterilized,”

He werit on outside, carrying^
the child. Franklin was waiting
for him in the kennel doorway.

“Was that Mrs. Norris I heard
screaming?”

Norris nodded. “Let’s get this
over with. I don’t stomach it so
well.” He let his eyes rest un-
happily on the top of Peony’s
head.

Franklin grinned at her and
took a bit of candy out of his
pocket. She refused it and snug-
gled closer to Norris.

“When can I go home?" she
piped. “I want Daddy.”

Franklin straightened, watch-
ing her with amusement. “You’re
going home in a few minutes, lit-
tle newt. Just a few minutes.”
They went into the kennels to-
gether, and Franklin headed
straight for the third room. He
seemed to be enjoying the situa-
tion. Norris hating him silently,
stopped at a workbench and
pulled on a pair of gloves. Then
he called after Franklin.

“Chief, since you’re in there,
check the outlet pressure while I
turn on the main line, will you?”
Franklin nodded assent. He
stood outside the gas-chamber,
watching the dials on the door.
Norris could see his back while
he twisted the main-line valve.

“Pressure’s up!” Franklin
called.

“Okay. Leave the hatch ajar
so it won’t lock, and crack the
intake valves. Read it again.” .
“Got a mask for me?”

Norris laughed. “If you’re
scared, there’s one on the shelf.
But just open the hatch, take a

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

reading, and close it. There’s no
danger.”

Franklin frowned at him and
cracked the intakes. Norris quiet-
ly closed the main valve again.

“Drops to zero!” Franklin
called.

“Leave it open, then. Smell
anything?”

“No. I’m turning it off, Nor-
ris.” He twisted the intakes.

Simultaneously, Norris opened
the main line.

“Pressure’s up again!”

Norris dropped his wrench and
walked back to the chamber,
leaving Peony perched on the
workbench.

“Trouble with the intakes,” he
said gruffly. “It’s happened be-
fore. Mind getting your hands
dirty with me, Chief?”

Franklin frowned irritably.
“Let’s hurry this up, Norris. I’ve
got five territories to visit.”

"Okay, but we’d better put on
our masks.” He climbed a metal
ladder to the top of. the chamber,
leaned over to inspect the intakes.
On his way down, he shouldered
a light-bulb over the door, shat-
tering it. Franklin cursed and
stepped back, brushing glass frag-
ments from his head and shoul-
ders.

“Good thing the light was off,”
he snapped.

Nprris handed him the gas-
mask and put on his own. “The
main switch is off,” he said. He

opened the intakes again. This
time the dials fell to normal
open-line pressure. “Well, look —
it’s okay,” he called through the
mask. “You sure it was zero be-
fore?”

“Of course I’m sure!” came the
muffled reply.

“Leave it on for a minute. We’ll
see. I’ll go get the newt. Don’t let
the door close, sir. It’ll start the
automatics and we can’t get it
open for half an hour.”

“I know, Norris. Hurry up.”

Norris left him standing just
outside the chamber, propping
the door open with his foot. A
faint wind was coming through
the opening. It should reach an
explosive mixture quickly with
the hatch ajar.

He stepped into the next room,
waited a moment, and jerked the
switch. The roar was deafening
as the exposed tungsten filament
flared and detonated the escaping
anesthetic vapor. Norris went to
cut off the main line. Peony was
crying plaintively. He moved to
the door and glanced at the
smouldering remains of Franklin.

T^EELING no emotion what-
ever, Norris left the kennels,
carrying the sobbing child under
one arm. His wife stared at him
without understanding.

“Here, hold Peony while I call
the police,” he said.

"Police? What’s happened?”

He dialed quickly. “Chief
Miler? This is Norris. Get over
here quick. My gas chamber ex-
ploded — killed Chief Agent
Franklin. Man, it’s awful! Hurry.”
He hung up and went back to
the kennels. He selected a normal
Bermuda -K-99 and coldly killed
it with a wrench. “You’ll serve
for a deviant,” he said, and left
it lying in the middle of the floor.

Then he went back to the
house, mixed a sleeping capsule
in a glass of water, and forced
Peony to drink it.

“So she’ll be out when the cops
come," he explained to Anne.

She stamped her foot. “Will
you tell me what’s happened?”
“You heard me on the phone.
Franklin accidentally died. That’s
all you have to know.”

He carried Peony out and
locked her in a cage. She was too
sleepy to protest, and she was
dozing when the police came.

Chief Miler strode about the
three rooms like a man looking
for a burglar at midnight. He
nudged the body of the neutroid
with his foot. “What’s this, Nor-
ris?”

“The deviant we were about to
destroy. I finished her with a
wrench.”

“I thought you said there
weren’t any deviants.”

“As far as the public’s con-
cerned, there aren’t. I couldn’t
see that it was any of your busi-

ness. It still isn’t”

“I see. It may become my busi-
ness, though. How’d the blast
happen?”

Norris told him the story up
to the point of the detonation.
“The light over the door was
loose. Kept flickering on and off.
Franklin reached up to tighten
it. Must have been a little gas in
the socket. Soon as he touched
it — wham !”

“Why was the door open with
the gas on?”

“I told you — we were checking
the intakes. If you close the door,
it starts the automatics. Then
you can’t get it open till the
cycle’s finished.”

“Where were you?"

“I'd gone to cut off the gas
again.”

“Okay, stay in the house until
we’re finished out here.”

W HEN Norris went back in
the house, his wife’s white
face turned slowly toward him.

She sat stiffly by the living
room window, looking sick. Her
voice was quietly frightened.

“Terry, I’m sorry about every-
thing.”

“Skip it.”

“What did you do?”

He grinned sourly. “I adapted
to an era. Did you find the in-
struments?”

She nodded. “What are they
for?”

62

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

"To cut off a tail and skin a
tattooed foot. Go to the store
and buy some brown hair- dye
and a pair of boy’s trousers, age
two. Peony’s going to get a crew-
cut. From now on, she’s Mike.”
“We’re class-C, Terry! We
can’t pass her off as our own.”
“We’re class-A, honey. I’m go-
ing to forge a heredity certifi-
cate.”

Anne put her face in her hands
and rocked slowly to and fro.

"Don’t feel bad, baby. It was
Franklin or a little girl. And from
now on, it’s society or the Nor-
rises.”

"What’ll we do?”

"Go to Atlanta and work for
Anthropos. I’ll take up where
Delmont left off.”

“Terry!"

"Peony will need a husband.
They may find all of Delmont’s
males. I’ll make her one. Then
we’ll see if a pair of chimp-Ks
can do better than their makers.”
Wearily, he stretched out on
the sofa.

"What about that priest? Sup-
pose he tells about Peony^ Sup-
pose he guesses about Franklin
and tells the police?”

"The police,” he said, “would
then smell a motive. They’d fig-
ure it out and I’d be finished.
We’ll wait and see. Let's don’t
talk: I’m tired. We’ll just wait
for Miler to come in.”

She began rubbing his temples

gently, and he smiled.

“So we wait,” she said. “Shall
I read to you, Terry?”

"That would be pleasant,” he
murmured, closing his eyes.

She slipped away, but returned
quickly. He heard the rustle of
dry pages and smelled musty
leather. Then her voice came,
speaking old words softly. And he
thought of the small child -thing
lying peacefully in her cage while
angry men stalked about her.. A
small life with a mind; she came
into the world as quietly as a
thief, a burglar in the crowded
house of Man.

*7 will send my fear before
thee, and I will destroy the peo-
ples before whom thou shalt
come , sending hornets to drive
out the Hevite and the Canaanite
and the Hethite before thou en-
terest the land. Little by little I
will drive them out before thee,
till thou be increased, and dost
possess the land. Then shalt thou
be to me a new people, and I to
thee a God . . .”

And on the quiet afternoon in
May, while he waited for the po-
lice to finish puzzling in the ken-
nels, it seemed to Terrell Norris
that an end to scheming and
pushing and arrogance was not
too far ahead. It should be a
pretty good world then.

He hoped Man could fit into it
somehow.

— WALTER M. MILLER, JR.

CONDITIONALLY HUMAN

63

t >.

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S
DAY

By FRITZ IIIBIR

Before science, there was superstition. After
science , there will be . . . what? The biggest,
most staggering, most final f act of them all !

U

B

| UT it's alt predicted
here! It even names
this century for the
next reshuffling of the planets.”
Celeste Wolver looked up un-
willingly at the book her friend

Madge Carnap held aloft like a
torch. She made out the ill-
stamped title, The Dance of the
Planets. There was no mistaking
the time of its origin; only paper
from the Twentieth Century aged

Illustrated by DAVID STONE

AS

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

to that particularly nasty shade
of brown. Indeed, the book
seemed to Celeste a brown old
witch resurrected from the Last
Age of Madness to confound a
world growing sane, and she
couldn’t help shrinking back a
trifle toward her husband Theo- •
dor.

He tried to come to her rescue.
"Only predicted in the vaguest
way. As I understand it, Kom-
etevsky claimed, on the basis of
a lot of evidence drawn from folk-
lore, that the planets and their
moons trade positions every so
often.”

"As if they were playing Going
to Jerusalem, or musical chairs,”
Celeste chimed in, but she
couldn’t make it sound funny.

"Jupiter was supposed to have
started as the outermost planet,
and is to end up in the orbit of
Mercury,” Theodor continued.
"Well, nothing at all like that
has happened.”

"But it’s begun,” Madge said
with conviction. “Phobos and
Deimos have disappeared. You
can’t argue away that stubborn
little fact.”

That was the trouble; you
couldn’t. Mars’ two tiny moons
had simply vanished during a
period when, as was generally the
case, the eyes of astronomy
weren’t on them. Just some hun-
dred-odd cubib miles of rock —
the merest cosmic flyspecks — yet

they had carried away with them
the security of a whole world.

T OOKING at the lovely garden
landscape around her, Ce-
leste Wolver felt that in a mo-
ment the shrubby hills would
begin to roll like waves, the
charmingly aimless paths twist
like snakes and sink in the green
sea, the sparsely placed skyscrap-
ers dissolve into the misty clouds
they pierced.

People must have felt like this,
she thought, when Aristarches
first hinted and Copernicus told
them that the solid Earth under
their feet was falling dizzily
through space. Only it’s worse for
us, because they couldn't see that
anything had changed. We can.

“You need something to cling
to.” she heard Madge say. “Dr.
Kometevsky was the only person
who ever had an inkling that any-
thing like this might happen. I
was never a Kometevsky ite be-
fore. Hadn’t even heard of the

man.”

She said it almost apologetic-
ally. In fact, standing there so
frank and anxious-eyed, Madge
looked anything but a fanatic,
which made it much worse.

“Of course, there are several
more convincing alternate ex-
planations ...” Theodor began
hesitantly, knowing very well that
there weren’t. If Phobos and
Deimos had suddenly disinte-

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

grated, surely Mars Base would
have noticed something. Of
course there was the Disordered
Space Hypothesis, even if it was
little more than the chance phrase
of a prominent physicist pounded
upon by an eager journalist. And
in any case, what sense of se-
curity were you left with if you
admitted that moons and planets
might explode, or drop through
unseen holes in space? So he
ended up by taking a different
tack: “Besides, if Phobos and
Deimos simply shot off some-
where, surely they'd have been
picked up by now by ’scope or
radar.”

“Two balls of rock just a few
miles in diameter?” Madge ques-
tioned. “Aren’t they smaller than
many of the asteroids? I’m no
astronomer, but I think I’m
right.”

And of course she was.

She swung the book under her
arm. “Whew, it’s heavy,” she
observed, adding in slightly
scandalized tones, “Never been
microfilmed.” She smiled ner-
vously and looked them up and
down. “Going to a party?” she
asked.

Theodor’s scarlet cloak and Ce-
leste’s green culottes and silver
jacket justified the question, but
they shook their heads.

“Just the normally flamboyant
garb of the family,” Celeste said,
while Theodor explained, “As

it happens, we’re bound on busi-
ness connected with the disap-
pearance. We Wolvers practically
constitute a sub-committee of the
Congress for the Discovery of
New Purposes. And since a lot
of varied material comes to our
attention, we’re going to see if
any of it correlates with this bit
of astronomical sleight-of-hand.’*

Madge nodded. “Give you
something to do, at any rate.
Well, I must be off. The Budd-
hist temple has lent us their
place for a meeting.” She gave
them a woeful grin. “See you
when the Earth jumps.”

Theodor said to Celeste, “Come
on. dear. We’ll be late.”

But Celeste didn't want to
move too fast. “You know,
Teddy,” she said uncomfortably,
“all this reminds me of those old
myths where too much good for-
tune is a sure sign of coming dis-
aster. It was just too much luck,
our great-grandparents missing
World III and getting the World
Government started a thousand
years ahead of schedule. Luck
like that couldn’t last, evidently.
Maybe we’ve gone too fast with
a lot of things, like space-flight
and the Deep Shaft and — ” she
hesitated a bit — “complex mar-
riages. I’m a woman. I want com-
plete security. Where am I to find
it?”

“In me,” Theodor said
promptly.

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

67

“In you?** Celeste questioned,
walking slowly, “But you’re just
one-third of my husband. Per-
haps I should look for it in Ed-
mund or Ivan.”

“You angry with me about
something?”

“Of course not. But a woman
wants her source of security
whole. In a crisis like this, it’s
disturbing to have it divided.”

"Well, we are a whole and, I
believe, indivisible family,” Theo-
dor told her warmly. “You’re not
suggesting, are you, that we’re go-
ing to be punished for our polyg-
amous sins by a cosmic catas-
trophe? Fire from heaven and
all that?”

"Don’t be silly. I just wanted
to give you a picture of my feel-
ing.” Celeste smiled. “I guess
none of us realized how much
we’ve come to depend on the idea
of unchanging scientific law.
Knocks the props from under
you.”

Theodor nodded emphatically.
“All the more reason to get a line
on what’s happening as quickly
as possible. You know, it’s fan-
tastically far-fetched, but I think
the experience of persons with
Extra-Sensory Perception may
give us a clue. During the past
three or four days there’s been a
remarkable similarity in the
dreams of ESPs all over the
planet. I’m going to present
the evidence at the meeting.”

68

Celeste looked up at him. “So
that’s why Rosalind’s bringing
Frieda’s daughter?”

“Dotty is your daughter, too,
and Rosalind’s,” Theodor re-
minded her.

“No, just Frieda's,” Celeste
said bitterly. “Of course you may
be the father. One-third of a
chance.”

Theodor looked at her sharply,
but didn't comment. "Anyway,
Dotty will be there,” he said.
“Probably asleep by now. All the
ESPs have suddenly seemed to
need more sleep.”

As they talked, it had been
growing darker, though the lumi-
nescence of the path kept it from
being bothersome. And now the
cloud rack parted to the east,
showing a single red planet low
on the horizon.

“Did you know,” Theodor said
suddenly, "that in Gulliver's
Travels Dean Swift predicted that
better telescopes would show
Mars to have two moons? He got
the sizes and distances and peri-
ods damned accurately, too. One
of the few really startling coin-
cidences of reality and litera-
ture.”

“Stop being eerie,” Celeste said
sharply. But then she went
on, "Those names Phobos and
Deimos — they’re Greek, aren’t
they? What do they mean?”

Theodor lost a step. "Fear and
Terror,” he said unwillingly.

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

‘'Now don’t go taking that for an
omen. Most of the mythological
names of major and minor anci-
ent gods had been taken — the
bodies in the Solar System are
named that way, of course — and
these were about all that were
available.”

It was true, but it didn’t com-
fort him much.

T AM a God, Dotty was dream -
■ ing, and I want to be by my-
self and think. I and my god-
friends like to keep some of our
thoughts secret, but the other
gods have forbidden us to.

A little smile flickered across
the lips of the sleeping girl, and
the woman in gold tights and
gold-spangled jacket leaned for-
ward thoughtfully. In her dignity
and simplicity and straight-
spined grace, she was rather like a
circus mother watching her sick
child before she went out for the
trapeze act.

I and my god-friends saif off
in our great round silver boats.
Dotty went on dreaming. The
other gods are angry and scared.
They are frightened of the
thoughts we may think in secret.
They follow us to hunt us down.
There are many more of them
than of us.

A S Celeste and Theodor entered
the committee room, Rosa-
lind Wolver — a glitter of plati-

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S OAT

num against darkness — came in
through the opposite door and
softly shut it behind her. Frieda,
a fair woman in blue robes, got
up from the round table.

Celeste turned away with out-
ward casualness as Theodor
kissed his two other wives. She
was pleased to note that Edmund
seemed impatient too. A figure in
close-fitting black, unrelieved ex-
cept for two red arrows at the
collar, he struck her as embody-
ing very properly the serious,
fateful temper of the moment.

He took two briefcases from
his vest pocket and tossed them
down on the table beside one of
the microfilm projectors.

“I suggest we get started with-
out waiting for Ivan,” he said.

Frieda frowned anxiously. ‘‘It’s
ten minutes since he phoned from
the Deep Space Bar to say he
was starting right away. And
that’s hardly two minutes walk.’*

Rosalind instantly started tor
ward the outside door.

“I’ll check,” she explained. “Oh,
Frieda, I’ve set the mike so you’ll
hear if Dotty calls,”

Edmund threw up his hands.
“Very well, then,” he said and
walked over, switched on the pic-
ture and stared out moodily.

Theodor and Frieda got out
their briefcases, switched on pro-
jectors, and began silently check-
ing through their material.

Celeste fiddled with the TV

69

and got a newscast. But she found
her eyes didn’t want to absorb
the blocks of print that rather
swiftly succeeded each other,
so, after a few moments, she
shrugged impatiently and
switched to audio.

At the noise, the others looked
around at her with surprise and
some irritation, but in a few mo-
ments they were also listening.

"The two rocket ships sent out
from Mars Base to explore the
orbital positions of Phobos and
Deimos, — that is, the volume of
space they’d be occuping if their
positions had remained normal —
report finding masses of dust and
larger debris. The two masses of
fine debris are moving in the
same orbits and at the same ve-
locities as the two vanished
moons, and occupy roughly the
same volumes of space, though
the mass of material is hardly a
hundredth that of the moons.
Physicists have ventured no state-
ments as to whether this consti-
tutes a confirmation of the Dis-
integration Hypothesis.

"However, we’re mighty pleased
at this news here. There’s a
marked lessening of tension. The
finding of the debris — solid, tan-
gible stuff — seems to lift the
whole affair out of the super-
natural miasma in which some of
us have been tempted to plunge
it One -hundredth of the moons
has been found.

The rest will also be!"

Edmund had turned his back
on the window. Frieda and Theo-
dor had switched off their pro-
jectors.

"Meanwhile, Earthlings are go-
ing about their business with a
minimum of commotion, meeting
with considerable calm the
strange threat to the fabric of
their Solar System. Many, of
course, are assembled in churches
and humanist temples. Kometev-
skyites have staged helicopter
processions at Washington, Pek-
ing, Pretoria, and Christiana, de-
manding that instant prepara-
tions be made for — and I quote
— ‘Earth’s coming leap through
space.’ They have also formally
challenged all astronomers to pro-
duce an explanation other than
the one contained in that strange
book so recently conjured from
oblivion, The Dance of the
Planets.

"That about winds up the story
for the present. There are no
new reports from Interplanetary
Radar, Astronomy, or the other
rocket ships searching in the ex-
tended Mars volume. Nor have
any statements been issued by the
various groups working on the
problem in Astrophysics, Cosmic
Ecology, the Congress for the
Discovery of New Purposes, and
so forth. Meanwhile, however, we
can take courage from the words
of a poem written even before Dr.

70

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

'

Kometevsky’s book :

“This Earth is not the steadfast place
. We landsmen build upon;

Fjom deep to deep she varies pace.
And while she comes is gone.
Berteath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship."

Vv 7HILE the TV voice intoned
* ’ the poem, growing richer as
emotion caught it up, Celeste
looked around her at the others.
Frieda, with her touch of femi-
nine helplessness showing more
than ever through her business-
like poise. Theodor leaning for-
ward from his scarlet cloak
thrown back, smiling the half-
smile with which he seemed to
face even the unknown. Black
Edmund, masking a deep uncer-
tainty with a strong show of de-
cisiveness.

In short, her family. She knew
their every quirk and foible. And
yet now they seemed to her a
million miles away, figures seen
through the wrong end of a tele-
scope.

Were they really a family?
Strong sources of mutual strength
and security to each other? Or
had they merely been playing
family, experimenting with their
notions of complex marriage like
a bunch of silly adolescents? But-
terflies taking advantage of good
weather to wing together in a

glamorous, artificial dance — until
outraged Nature decided to wipe
them out?

As the poem was ending, Ce-
leste saw the door open and Rosa-
lind come slowly in. The Golden
Woman’s face was white as the
paths she had been treading.

Just then the TV voice quick-
ened with shock. “News! Lunar
Observatory One reports that, al-
though Jupiter is just about to
pass behind the Sun, a good cor-
onagraph of the planet has been
obtained. Checked and rechecked,
it admits of only one interpreta-
tion, which Lunar One feels duty-
bound to release. Jupiter's tour -
teen moons are no longer visible!'*

The chorus of remarks with
which the Wolvers would other-
wise have received this was
checked by one thing: the fact
that Rosalind seemed not to hear
it. Whatever was on her mind pre-
vented even that incredible state-
ment from penetrating.

She walked shakily to the table
and put down a briefcase, one
end of which was smudged with
dirt.

Without looking at them, she
said, “Ivan left the Deep Space
Bar twenty minutes ago, said he
was coming straight here. On my
way back I searched the path.
Midway I found this half-buried
in the dirt. I had to tug to get it
out — almost as if it had been ce-
mented into the ground. Do you

OR. KOMETEVSKTS DAY

71

feel how the dirt seems to be in
the leather, as if it had lain for
years in the grave?”

By now the others were finger-
ing the small case of microfilms
they had seen so many times in
Ivan’s competent hands. What
Rosalind said was true. It had a
gritty, unwholesome feel to it.
Also, it felt strangely heavy.

"And see what’s written on it,”
she added.

They turned it over. Scrawled
with white pencil in big, hasty,
frantic letters were two words:

"Going down!”

The other gods, Dotty dreamt,
«re combing the whole Universe
for us. We have escaped them
many times, but now our tricks
ore almost used up. There are no
doors going out of the Universe
and our boats are silver beacons
to th* hunters. So we decide to
disgui ve them in the only way
they ( an be disguised. It is our
last dance .

TTDMUND rapped the table to
gain the family’s attention.

“I'd say we’ve done everything
we can for the moment to find
Ivan. We’ve made a thorough lo-
cal search. A wider one, which
we can’t conduct personally, is in
progress. All helpful agencies
have been alerted and descrip-
tions are being broadcast. I sug-
gest we get on with the business

72

of the evening — which may very
well be connected with Ivan’s
disappearance.”

One by one the others nodded
and took their places at the round
table. Celeste made a great ef-
fort to throw off the feeling of un-
reality that had engulfed her and
focus attention on her microfilms.

“I’ll take over Ivan’s notes,”
she heard Edmund say. “They’re
mainly about the Deep Shaft.”

“How far have they got with
that?” Frieda asked idly. "Twen-
ty-five miles?”

“Nearer thirty, I believe,” Ed-
mund answered, “and still going
down.”

At those last two words they all
looked up quickly. Then their
eyes went toward Ivan’s brief-
case.

Our trick has succeeded. Dotty
dreamt. The other gods have
passed our hiding place a dozen
times without noticing. They
search the Universe for us many
times in vain. They finally de-
cide that we have found a door
going out of the Universe. Yet
they fear us all the more. They
think of us as devils who will
some day return through the door
to destroy them. So they watch
everywhere. We lie quietly smil-
ing in our camouflaged boats, yet
hardly daring to move or think,
for fear that the faintest echoes
of our doings will give them a

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

clue. Hundreds of millions of
years pass by. They seem to us
no more than drugged hours in
a prison.

Theodor rubbed his eyes and
pushed his chair back from the
table. “We need a break.”

Frieda agreed wearily. “We've
gone through everything.”

“Good idea,” Edmund said
briskly. “I think we’ve hit on
several crucial points along the
way and half disentangled them
from the great mass of inconse-
quential material. I’ll finish up
that part of the job right now
and present my case when we’re
all a bit fresher. Say half an
hour?”

Theodor nodded heavily, push-
ing up from his chair and hitching
his cloak over a shoulder.

“I’m going out for a drink,”
he informed them.

After several hesitant seconds,
Rosalind quietly followed him.
Frieda stretched out on a couch
and closed her eyes. Edmund
scanned microfilms tirelessly,
every now and then setting one
aside.

Celeste watched him for a
minute, then sprang up and
started toward the room where
Dotty was asleep. But midway
she stopped.

Not my child, she thought bit-
terly. Frieda’s her mother , Rosa-
lind her nurse. I’m nothing at all.

Just one of the husband's girl
friends. A lady of uneasy virtue
in a dissolving world.

But then she straightened her
shoulders and went on.

R osalind didn’t catch up
with Theodor. Her footsteps
were silent and he never looked
back along the path whose feeble
white glow rose only knee-high,
lighting a low strip of shrub and
mossy treetrunk to either side, no
more.

It was a little chilly. She drew
on her gloves, but she didn’t
hurry. In fact, she fell farther and
farther behind the dipping tail
of his scarlet cloak and his plodd-
ing red shoes, which seemed to
move disembodied, like those in
the fairy tale.

When she reached the point
where she had found Ivan’s brief-
case, she stopped altogether.

A breeze rustled the leaves, and,
moistly brushing her cheek,
brought forest scents of rot and
mold. After a bit she began to
hear the furtive scurryings and
scuttlings of forest creatures.

She looked around her half-
heartedly, suddenly realizing the
futility of her quest. What clues
could she hope to find in this
knee-high twilight? And they’d
thoroughly combed the place
earlier in the night.

Without warning, an eerie ting-
ling went through her and she

;

was seized by a horror of the
cold, grainy Earth underfoot —
an ancestral terror from the days
when men shivered at ghost
stories about graves and tombs.

A tiny detail persisted in bulk-
ing larger and larger in her mind
— the unnaturalness of the way
the Earth had impregnated the
corner of Ivan’s briefcase, almost
as if dirt and leather co-existed
in the same space. She remem-
bered the queer way the partly
buried briefcase had resisted her
first tug, like a rooted plant.

She felt cowed by the myster-
ious. night about her, and literally
dwarfed, as if she had grown sev-
eral inches shorter. She roused
herself and started forward.

Something held her feet.

They were ankle-deep in the
path. While she looked in fright
and horror, they began to sink

still lower into the ground.

She plunged frantically, trying
to jerk loose. She couldn’t. She
had the panicky feeling that the
Earth had not onty trapped but
invaded her; that its molecules
were creeping up between the
molecules of her flesh; that the
two were becoming one.

And she was sinking faster.
Now knee-deep, thigh -deep, hip-
deep, waist-deep. She beat at the
powdery path with her hands and
threw her body from side to side
in agonized frenzy like some sin-
ner frozen in the ice of the inner-
most circle of the ancients’ hell.
And always the sense of the dqrk,
grainy tide rose inside as well as
around her.

She thought, he'd just have had
time to scribble that note on his
briefcase and toss it away. She
jerked off a glove, leaned out as

74

GALAXY SCIENCE EICTION

far as she could, and made a fran-
tic effort to drive its fingers into
the powdery path. Then the
Earth mounted to her chin, her
nose, and covered her eyes.

She expected blackness, but it
was as if the light of the path
stayed with her, making a little
glow all around. She saw roots,
pebbles, black rot, worn tunnels,
worms. Tier on tier of them, her
vision penetrating the solid
ground. And at the same time, the
knowledge that these same sorts
of things were coursing up
through her.

A ND still she continued to sink
at a speed that increased,
as if the law of gravitation ap-
plied to her in a diminished way.
She dropped from black soil
through gray clay and into pale
limestone.

Her tortured, rock-permeated
lungs sucked at rock and drew
in air. She wondered madly if a
volume of air were falling with
her through the stone.

A glitter of quartz. The mo-
mentary openness of a foot-high
cavern with a trickle of water.
And then she was sliding down a
black basalt column, half inside
it, half inside gold-flecked ore.
Then just black basalt. And al-
ways faster.

It grew hot, then hotter, as if
she were approaching the mythi-
cal eternal fires.

A T first glance Theodor
thought the Deep Space Bar
was empty. Then he saw a figure
hunched monkeylike on the last
stool, almost lost in the blue
shadows, while behind the bar,
her crystal dress blending with
the' tiers of sparkling glasses,
stood a grave-eyed young girl
who could hardly have been
fifteen.

The TV was saying, “ in
addition, a number of mysteri-
ous disappearances of high -rating
individuals have been reported.
These are thought to be cases of
misunderstanding, illusory appre-
hension, and impulse traveling —
a result of the unusual stresses
of the time. Finally, a few sug-
gestible individuals in various
parts of the globe, especially the
Indian Peninsula, have declared
themselves to -be ‘gods’ and" in
some way responsible for current
events.

“It is thought — ”

The girl switched off the TV
and took Theodor’s order, ex-
plaining casually, “Joe wanted to
go to a Kometevskyite meeting,
so I took over for him.” When
she had prepared Theodor’s high-
ball, she announced, “I’ll have a
drink with you gentlemen,” and
squeezed herself a glass of pome-
granite juice.

The monkey like figure mut-
tered, “Scotch-and-soda,” then
turned toward Edmund and

76

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

asked, “And what is your reac-
tion to all this, sir?"

T HEODOR recognized the
shrunken wrinkle-seamed face.
It was Colonel Fortescue, a mili-
tary antique long retired from
the Peace Patrol and reputed to
have seen actual fighting in the
Last Age of Madness. Now, for
some reason, the face sported a
knowing smile.

Theodor shrugged. Just then
the TV “big news” light blinked
blue and the girl switched on
audio. The Colonel winked at
Theodor..

“ . . . confirming the disappear-
ance of Jupiter’s moons. But two
other utterly fantastic reports
have just been received. First,
Lunar Observatory One says that
it is visually tracking fourteen
small bodies which it believes
may be the lost moons of Jupiter.
They are moving outward from
the Solar System at an incredible
velocity and are already beyond
the orbit of Saturn!”

The Colonel said, “Ah !”
“Second, Palomar reports a
large number of dark bodies ap-
proaching the Solar System at an
equally incredible velocity. They
are at about twice the distance
of Pluto, but closing in fast! We
will be on the air with further de-
tails as soon as possible."

The Colonel said, “Ah-ha!”
Theodor stared at him. The old

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

man’s self-satisfied poise was al-
most amusing.

“Are you a Kometevskyite?”
Theodor asked him.

The Colonel laughed. “Of
course not, my boy. Those poor
people are fumbling in the dark.
Don’t you see what’s happened?”

“Frankly, no.”

The Colonel leaned toward
Theodor and whispered gruffly,
“The Divine Plan. God is a mili-
tary strategist, naturally.”

Then he lifted the scotch -and-
soda in his clawlike hand and
took a satisfying swallow.

“I knew it all along, of course,"
he went on musingly, “but this
last news makes it as plain as a
rocket blast, at least to anyone
who knows military strategy.
Look here, my boy, suppose you
were commanding a fleet and got
wind of the enemy’s approach—
what would you do? Why, you’d
send your scouts and destroyers
fanning out toward them. Behind
that screen you’d mass your
heavy ships. Then — ”

“You don’t mean to imply — ”
Theodor interrupted.

The girl behind the bar looked
at them both cryptically.

“Of course I do!” the Colonel
cut in sharply. “It’s a war be-
tween the forces of good and evil.
The bright suns and planets are
on one side, the dark on the
other.

The moons are the destroy-

77

ers, Jupiter and Saturn are the
big battleships, while we're on a
heavy cruiser, I’m proud to say.
We’ll probably go into action
soon. Be a corking fight, what?
And all by divine strategy!”

He chuckled and took another
big drink. Theodor looked at
him sourly. The girl behind the
bar polished a glass and said
nothing.

D OTTY suddenly began to
turn and toss, and a look
of terror came over her sleeping
face. Celeste leaned forward ap-
prehensively.

The child’s lips worked and
Celeste made out the sleepy-fuzzy
words: “They’ve found out where
we’re hiding. They’re coming to
get us. No! Please, no!”

Celeste’s reactions were mixed.
She felt worried about Dotty and
at the same time almost in terror
of her, as if the little girl were
an agent of supernatural forces.
She told herself that this fear was
an expression of her own hostility,
yet she didn’t really believe it.
She touched the child’s hand.

Dotty’s eyes opened without
making Celeste feel she had quite
come awake. After a bit she
looked at Celeste and her little
lips parted in a smile.

“Hello,” she said sleepily. “I’ve
been having such funny dreams."
Then, after a pause, frowning,
“I really am a god, you know. It

feels very queer.”

“Yes, dear?” Celeste prompted
uneasily. “Shall I call Frieda?"

The smile left Dotty’s lips.
“Why do you act so nervous
around me?” she asked. “Don’t
you love me, Mummy?”

Celeste started at the word. Her
throat closed. Then, very slowly,
her face broke into a radiant
smile. “Of course I do, darling. I
love you very much.”

Dotty nodded happily, her eyes
already closed again.

There was a sudden flurry of
excited voices beyond tjie door.
Celeste heard her name called.
She stood up.

“I’m going to have to go out
and talk with the others,” she
said. “If you want me, dear, just
call."

“Yes, Mummy.”

l^DMUND rapped for atten-
tion. Celeste, Frieda, and
Theodor glanced around at him.
He looked more frightfully
strained, they realized, than even
they felt His expression was a
study in suppressed excitement,
but there were also signs of a
knowledge that was almost too
overpowering for a human being
to bear.

His voice was clipped, rapid.
“I think it’s about time we
stopped worrying about our own
affairs and thought of those of
the Solar System, partly because

78

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

I think they have a direct bearing
on the disappearances of Ivan
and Rosalind. As I told you, I’ve
been sorting out the crucial items
from the material we’ve been pre-
senting. There are roughly four
of those items, as I see it. It’s
rather like a mystery story. I
wonder if, hearing those four
clues, you will come to the same
conclusion I have.”

The others nodded.

“First, there are the latest re-
ports from Deep Shaft, which, as
you know, has been sunk to in-
vestigate deep-Earth conditions.
At approximately twenty-nine
miles below the surface, the delv-
ers have encountered a metallic
obstruction which they have ten-
tatively named the durasphere.
It resists their hardest drills, their
strongest corrosives. They have
extended a side-tunnel at that
level for a quarter of a mile. Deli-
cate measurements, made possible
by the mirror-smooth metal sur-
face, show that the durasphere
has a slight curvature that is
almost exactly equal to the curva-
ture of the Earth itself. The sug-
gestion is that deep borings made
anywhere in the world would en-
counter the durasphere at the
same depth.

“Second, the movements of the
moons of Mars and Jupiter, and
particularly the debris left behind
by the moons of Mars. Granting
Fhobos and Deimos had duras-

pheres proportional in size to that
of Earth, then the debris would
roughly equal in amount the ma-
terial in thos$ two duraspheres*
rocky envelopes. The suggestion
is that the two duraspheres sud-
denly burst from their envelopes
with such itanic velocity as to
leave those disrupted envelopes
behind.”

It was deadly quiet in the com-
mittee room.

“Thirdly, the disappearances of
Ivan and Rosalind, and especially
the baffling hint — from Ivan’s
message in one case and Rosa-
lind’s downward -pointing glove
in the other — that they were both
somehow drawn into the depths
of the Earth.

“Finally, the dreams of the
ESPs, which agree overwhelm-
ingly in the following points: A
group of beings separate them-
selves from a godlike and tele-
pathic race because they insist
on maintaining a degree of mental
privacy. They flee in great boats
or ships of some sort. They are
pursued on such a scale that
there is no hiding place for them
anywhere in the universe. In some
manner they Successfully camou-
flage their ships. Eons pass and
their still-fanatical pursuers do
not penetrate their secret. Then,
suddenly, they are detected.”

Edmund waited. “Do you see
what I’m driving at?” he asked
hoarsely.

DR. KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

79

TTE could tell from their looks
that the others did, but
couldn’t bring themselves to put
it into words.

“I suppose it’s the time-scale
and the value-scale that are so
hard for us to accept,” he said
softly. “Much more, even, than
the size-scale. The thought that
there are creatures in the Uni-
verse to whom the whole career
of Man — in fact, the whole ca-
reer of life — is no more than a
few thousand or hundred thou-
sand years. And to whom Man is
no more than a minor stage prop-
erty — a trifling part of a clever
job of camouflage.”

This time he went on, “Fantasy
writers have at times hinted all
sorts of odd things about the
Earth — that it might even be a
kind of single living creature, or
honeycombed with inhabited cav-
erns, and so on. But I don’t know
that any of them have ever sug-
gested that the Earth, together
with all the planets and moons
of the Solar System, might
be . .

In a whisper, Frieda finished
for him, “ . . . a camouflaged fleet
of gigantic spherical spaceships.”

“Four guess happens to be the
precise truth.”

At that familiar, yet dreadly
unfamiliar voice, all four of them
swung toward the inner door.
Dotty was standing there, a sleep-
stupefied little girl with a blanket

caught up around her and drag-
ging behind. Their own daughter.
But in her eyes was a look from
which they cringed.

She said, “I am a creature
somewhat older than what your
geologists call the Archeozoic Era.
I am speaking to you through a
number of telepathically sensitive
individuals among your kind. In
each case my thoughts suit them-
selves to your level of compre-
hension. I inhabit the disguised
and jetless spaceship which is
your Earth.”

Celeste swayed a step forward.
“Baby . . she implored.

Dotty went on, without giving
her a glance, “It is true that we
planted the seeds of life on some
of these planets simply as part
of our camouflage, just as we gave
them a suitable environment for
each. And it is true that now
we must let most of that life be
destroyed. Our hiding place has
been discovered, our pursuers are
upon us, and we must make one
last effort to escape or do battle,
since we firmly believe that the
principle of mental privacy to
which we have devoted our exist-
ence is perhaps the greatest good
in the whole Universe.

“But it is not true that we look
with contempt upon you. Our
whole race is deeply devoted to
life, wherever it may come into
being, and it is our rule never to
interfere with its development.

80

GAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION

That was one of the reasons we
made life a part of our camou-
flage — it would make our pur-
suers reluctant to examine these
planets too closely.

“Yes, we have always cherished
you and watched your evolution
with interest from our hidden
lairs. We may even unconsciously
have shaped your development in
certain ways, trying constantly to
educate you away from war and
finally succeeding — which may
have given the betraying clue to
our pursuers.

“Your planets must be burst
asunder — this particular planet in
the area of the Pacific — so that
we may have our last chance to
escape. Even if we did not move,
our pursuers would destroy you
with us. We cannot invite you
inside our ships- — not for lack
of space, but because you could
never survive the vast accelera-
tions to which you would be sub-
jected. You would, you see, need
very special accommodations, of
which we have enough only for
a few.

“Those few we will take with
us, as the seed from which a new
human race may — if we ourselves
somehow survive — be bom.”

¥>0SALIND and Ivan stared
■*-*- dumbly at each other across
the egg-shaped silver room, with-
out apparent entrance or exit, in
which they were sprawled. But

their thoughts were no longer of
thirty-odd mile journeys down
through solid earth, or of how
cool it was after the heat of the
passage, or of how grotesque it
was to be trapped here, the frag-
ment of a marriage. They were
both listening to the voice that
spoke inside their minds.

“In a few minutes your bodies
will be separated into layers one
atom thick, capable of being
shelved or stored in such a way
as to endure almost infinite ac-
celerations. Single cells will cover
acres of space. But do not be
alarmed. The process will be
painless and each particle will
be catalogued for future assem-
bly. Your consciousness will en-
dure throughout the process.”

Celeste looked at her gold-
shod toes. She was wondering,
will they go first, or my head ?
Or will I be peeled like an apple?

She looked at Ivan and knew
he was thinking the same thing.

T TP in the committee room, the
^ other Wolvers slumped
around the table. Only little
Dotty sat straight and staring,
speechless and unanswering,
quite beyond their reach, like a
telephone off the hook and with
the connection open, but no voice
from the other end.

They had just switched off the
TV after listening to a confused
medley of denials, prayers, Kom-

D t . KOMETEVSKY'S DAY

SI

etevskyite chatterings, and a few
astonishingly realistic comments
on the possibility of survival.

These last pointed out that, on
the side of the Earth opposite
the Pacific, the convulsions would
come slowly when the entombed
spaceship burst forth — provided,
as seemed the case, that it moved
without jets or reaction.

It would be as if the Earth’s
vast core simply vanished. Grav-
ity would diminish abruptly to
a fraction of its former value. The
empty envelope of rock and water
and air would slowly fall to-
gether. though at the same time
the air would begin to escape
from the debris because there
would no longer be the' mass re-
quired to hold it.

However, there might be defi-
nite chances of temporary apd
even prolonged survival for in-
dividuals in strong, hermetically
sealed structures, such as subma-
rines and spaceships. The few
spaceships on Earth were re-
ported to have blasted off, or be
preparing to leave, with as many
passengers as could be carried.

But most persons, apparently,
could not contemplate action of
any sort. They could only sit and
think, like the Wolvers.

A faint smile relaxed Celeste’s
face. She was thinking, how beau-
tiful! It means the death of the
Solar System, which is a horrify-
ing subjective concept. Objec-

tively, though , it would be a more
awesome sight than any human
being has ever seen or ever could
see. 7f’s an absurd and even brutal
thing to wish — but I wish I could
see the whole cataclysm from be-
ginning to end. It would make
death seem very small, a tiny
personal event.

Botty’s face was losing its
blank expression, becoming in-
tent and alarmed.

“We are in contact with our
pursuers,” she said in the fa-
miliar-unfamiliar voice. “Negoti-
ations are now going on. There
seems to be — there is a change in
them. Where they were harsh and
vindictive before, they now are
gentle and conciliatory.” She
paused, the alarm on her childish
features pinching into anxious
uncertainty. “Our pursuers have
always been shrewd. The change
in them may be false, intended
merely to lull us into allowing
them to come close enough to de-
stroy us. We must not fall into
the trap by growing hopeful ...”

They leaned forward, clutching
hands, watching the little face as
though it were a television screen.
Celeste had the wild feeling that
she was listening to a communi-
que from a war so unthinkably
vast and violent, between op-
ponents so astronomically huge
and nearly immortal, that she
felt like no more than a reasoning
ameba . . . and then realized with

»2

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

an explosive urge to laugh that
that was exactly the situation.

“No!” said Dotty. Her eyes be-
gan to glow. “They have changed!
During the eons in which we lay
sealed away and hidden from
them, knowing nothing of them,
they have rebelled against the
tyranny of a communal mind to
which no thoughts are private
. . . the tyranny that we ourselves
fled to escape. They come not to
destroy us, but to welcome us
back to a society that we and
they can make truly great!”

T^RIEDA collapsed to a chair,
trembling between laughter
and hysterical weeping. Theodor
looked as blank as Dotty had
while waiting for words to speak.
Edmund sprang to the picture
window, Celeste toward the TV
set.

Climbing shakily out of the
chair, Frieda stumbled to the pic-
ture window and peered out be-
side Edmund, She saw lights bob-
bing along the paths with a wild
excitement.

On the TV screen, Celeste
watched two brightly lit ships
spinning in the sky — whether
human spaceships or Phobos and
Deimos come to help Earth re-
joice, she couldn’t tell.

Dotty spoke again, the joy in
her strange voice forcing them
to turn. “And you, dear children,
creatures of our camouflage, we

welcome you — whatever your fu-
ture career on these planets or
like ones — into the society of en-
lightened worlds! You need not
feel small and alone and helpless
ever again, for we shall always
be with you!”

The outer door opened. Ivan
and Rosalind reeled in, drunkenty
smiling, arm in arm.

“Like rockets,” Rosalind
blurted happily. “We came
through the durasphere and solid
rock . . . shot up right to the
surface.”

“They didn’t have to take us
along,” Ivan added with a bleary
grin. “But you know that already,
don’t you? They’re too good to
let you live in fear, so they must
have told you by now.”

“Yes, we know,” said Theodor.
“They must be almost godlike in
their goodness. I feel . . . calm.”
Edmund nodded soberly.
“Calmer than I ever felt before.
It’s knowing, I suppose, that —
well, we’re not alone.”

Dotty blinked and looked
around and smiled at them all
with a wholly little -girl smile.

“Oh, Mummy,” she said, and
it was impossible to tell whether
she spoke to Frieda or Rosalind
or Celeste, “I’ve just had the
funniest dream.”

“No, darling,” said Rosalind
gently, “it’s we who had the
dream. We’ve just awakened.”

—FRITZ I. Il.lt I. It

M

DR. KOMETEVSKT'S DAY

THE PUPPET MASTERS, by
Robert A. Heinlein. Doubleday &•
?o., Inc., New York, 1951. 219
pages, $2.75

BETWEEN PLANETS, by Rob-
ert A. Heinlein. Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York, 1951. 222 pages,
$2'50

W ITHIN these two books can
be found nearly the whole
spread of the complex Heinlein
character — the hard-boiled, al-
most Huxleyan sophisticate, the
somberly mature player with

84

ideas in The Puppet Masters (ser-
ialized last fall in GALAXY) and
the hard, muscular, action writer
for the teen-age crowd who gives
them wonderfully adventurous
concepts of a future life in space.

The Puppet Masters, with its
chilling concept of the alien in-
vader in the form of a parasite
that gloms onto one’s shoulders
and thereby converts one into
merely another molecule in the
mass-society of the encroaching
slugs, is a fascinatingly repulsive
job. Since it appeared here, to

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

say more would be immodest.

In Between Planets, a violent
tale of the revolt of the Venus
and Mars colonies against the
deadening bureaucracy of Earth,
we have a magnificently real and
vivid Picture of the Possible, even
including the charmingly intel-
lectual crocodiles Heinlein picks
as the dominant life-fo»m of
Venus.

The hero is a very real teen-age
boy who had been born in space
and was thus a “citizen of the
world” and a “displaced person”
when war broke out.

Without question, the tale will
appeal to adult Science Fiction
readers as well as to their sons —
and daughters.

LODESTAR, by F rankly n Bran-
ley. Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New
York, 1951. 248 pages, $2.50

HPHIS juvenile suffers from the
-* fact that its author is a high
school science teacher who too
often tries to put over a bit of
knowledge or information along
with the adventure. The story
tells of the first rocket trip to
Mars, and technically has much
of interest in it. Branley has paid
attention to a lot of the minutiae
of space travel that more careless
writers either do not know or take
as matters of course.

The distressing result is that
the characterizations arc pain-

fully amateur and the plot en-
tirely so, while the science and the
imagination exposed in the book
are generally first-rate. It is the
awkward and often patronizing
writing down to youth that is a
little difficult to stomach. It’s
surprising — Mr. Branlcy’s own
students must have shown him
how alert kids are today.

THE BEST SCIENCE FIC-
TION STORIES, 1951. Edited
by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E.
Dikty. Frederick Fell, Inc., New
York, 1951. 352 pages, $2.95

T HIRD in the Fell series of
annual winnowings of the sci-
ence fiction crop, this attractive
volume contains 18 stories, of
which 12 rate as “B” or bejtter on
my grading scale. This is a very
high 'average for contemporary
science fiction anthologies.

The book has a long introduc-
tion. in which we are indoctri-
nated with the concept of science
fiction as ethnography. Well,
maybe.

The stories I mark as follows:
“A” — Bill Brown’s “Star Ducks”
(delightful!), Roger Young’s “Not
to be Opened,” Katherine Mac-
Lean’s “Contagion,” Alfred
Bester’s lovely “Oddy and Id,*
Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man”
(which everybody Loves!), Dick
Matheson’s “Born of Man and
Woman,” Ray Bradbury’s “The

* ★ ★ ★ ★ SHELF

IS

Fox in the Forest” (what a ter-
rific story!), Fredric Brown’s
“The Last Martian,” and, last
but not least, the outstanding
science fiction story of 1951,
Fritz Leiber’s “Coming Attrac-
tion,” which, of course, created a
row when it was in GALAXY.

“B” stories — R. Bretnor’s “The
Gnurrs Come from the Voodvork
Out” (which really isn’t science
fiction at all, Cyril Kornbluth’s
“The Mindworm” (which would
have been “A” if only there
wasn’t already a story called
“The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”,
Leiber, 1949), and William Tem-
ple’s “Forget Me Not,” great in
concept, but pointless in that it
literally goes nowhere.

The other six tales are not
worth mentioning, so I won’t
mention them.

FOUNDATION, by Isaac Asi-
mov. Gnome Press, New York,
1951. 255 pages, $2.75

T iHIS, Asimov’s fourth book in
two years, is obviously the
first volume of several which will
tell the history of the whole
period between the First and
Second Galactic Empires, and
how the Centuries of the Dark
Ages were reduced from a postu-
lated three hundred to less than
ten through the workings of Hari
Seldon’s Foundation for Psycho-
history.

ti

This first volume carries the
story from the start of the Foun-
dation, with a selection from the
memoirs of Gaal Dornick, Sel-
don’s biographer, clear through
to the episode of Hober Mallow,
first of the galactic Merchant
Princes. In between, there is the
magnificent career of Salvor Har-
din, Politician, in two stories; and
the relatively undistinguished tale
of Limnar Ponyets, Trader and
predecessor of the Merchant
Princes.

Asimov has obviously studied
the trends and trajectories of
past human history, and has
transposed them with sometimes
unnecessary literalness to the
enormous scale of a Galactic civ-
ilization. From the priest-pre-
servers of the remnants of an
ancient culture to the merchantile
sea captains opening up the
China Sea and the first great
capitalists of the Venetian era,
the trends of our own world's
history are mirrored in this book
on a vastly magnified scale.

Woven throughout is a strand
of belief by the author that, to-
morrow, psychological sciences
will have advanced to a point
where they can prophesy — and to
some degree control — the future
movements of humanity as a
whole.

The result is a book of real
intellectual entertainment and ad-
venture.

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

WHO GOES THERE? by John
Campbell, Jr. Shasta Publishers,
Chicago, 2nd Ed., 1951. 231
pages, $3.00

HPHIS is a reissue of a collection
of Campbell's short stories,
first published in 1948. to take
advantage of the publicity sur-
rounding the movie The Thing,

which theoretically was based on
the title story of this collection.
The connection between the two
is not excessively close.

It is a pleasure to have the
group of seven Campbell shorts
on hand again. Every one of
them is definitely worth having in
your permanent library.

—GROFF CONKLIN

• SYMBOLIC LOGIC and other

• CONSTRUCTION OF ROBOTS scientific

• COMPUTING MACHINERY

COURSES or Guided Study by Mail-4>eginning or advanced— individ-
uals or study groups. Fitted to your interests and needs. From $9 to $35

../am immensely enjoying this Available:
opportunity to discuss and learn.’' Robot Design & Construction Plans—
"SIMON"— $35.

"SQUEE"- $8.

Write: EDMUND C. BERKELEY anil Associates

Inventor of “SIMON”, Mechanical Brain & “SQUEE”, Robot Squirrel
Author of “Glwnf Brains or Machines that Think ” (Wiley — 1949)

36 West 11th St., Dept. C2, New York 11, N. Y.

— o member of the Faculty,
Dartmouth Medical School

NEXT MONTH'S CONTENTS PAGE

NOVELET

THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT ....

SHORT STORIES

MANNERS OF THE AGE

by H. B. Fyfe

THE SEVENTH ORDER

CATCH THAT MARTIAN

INTRODUCING

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

by Willy Ley

BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL-Conclusion
THE DEMOLISHED MAN

FEATURES

EDITOR'S PAGE

GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF

***★•★ shelf

•7

Pre-Publication Offer

Only ore thing could equal owning a complete file of
GALAXY Science Fiction . . . having on ANTHOLOGY of
GALAXY stories!

Published by Crown, it's a really huge book . . . over 500
pages, more than a quarter of o million words of favorite
GALAXY stories in convenient form . . . o giant reading bargain
at .only $3.00 a copy.

But we have an offer that makes this giant bargain even more
gigantic:

Twelve quality-crammed issues of GALAXY Science Fiction
monthly at the newsstand come to $4.20 a year.

A copy of THE GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION READER is $3.00.

Total: $7.20.

But . . . IF YOU ACT AT ONCE, you get your Special Readers"
Pre-Publication copy of THE GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION READER
. . . plus the next twelve big issues of GALAXY . . . for only $5.95!

You'll want them both. Don't wait because this it o pre-
publication offer and cannot be kept open long. Moil the
coupon below with $5.95 today.

GALAXY Publishing Corp.

421 Hudson Street
New York 14, N. Y.

Yes, start □ (or extendi □) my subscription right oway — ond moil me
my copy of THE GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION READER os scon at M rolls
off the presses! I enclose $5.95 os payment in full for both.

Nome

Address — • —

City .. 2 mio State..

Start with the * ***"*•

88

fresh air fiend

By KRIS NEVILLE

Sick and helpless , he was very lucky to have a

faithful native woman to nurse him. Or was he?

H E rolled over to look at
the plants. They were
crinkled and dead and
useless in the narrow flower box
across the hut. He tried to draw
his arm under his body to force
himself erect. The reserve oxygen
began to hiss in sleepily. He tried
to signal Hertha to help him, but

she was across the room with her
back to him, her hands fumbling
with a bowl of dark, syrupy medi-
cine. His lips moved, but the
words died in his throat.

He wanted to explain to her
that scientists in huge laboratories
with many helpers and millions
of dollars had been unable to find

Illustrated by KARL ROGERS

a cure for liguna fever. He wanted
to explain that no brown liquid,
made like cake batter, would cure
the disease that had decimated
the crews of two expeditions to
Sitari and somehow gotten back
to cut down the population of
Wiblanihaven.

But, watching her, he could
understand what she thought she
was doing. At one time she must
have seen a pharmacist put chem-
icals into a mortar and grind
them with a pestle. This, she must
have remembered, was what peo-
ple did to make medicine, and
now she put what chemical -
appearing substances she could
locate — flour, powdered coffee,
lemon extract, salt — into a bowl
and mashed them together. She
was very intent on her work and
it probably made her feel almost
helpful.

Finally she moved out of his
field of vision; he found that he
could not turn his head to follow
her with his eyes. He lay con-
scious but inert, like waterlogged
wood on a river bottom. He heard
sounds of her movement. At last
he slept.

H E awakened with a start. His
head was clearer than it
had been for hours. He listened
to the oxygen hissing in again.
He tried to read the dial on the
far wall, but it blurred before
his eyes.

“Hertha,” he said.

She came quickly to his cot.

“What does the oxygen regis-
ter say?”

“Oxygen register?”

He gritted his teeth against the
fever which began to shake his
body mercilessly until he wanted
to scream to make it stop. He
became angry even as the fever
shook him: angry not really at
the doctors ; not really at any one
thing. Angry because the moun-
tains did not care if he saw them;
angry that the air did not care if
he breathed it. Angry because,
between - planets, between suns,
the coldness of space merely
waited, not giving a damn.

Several years ago — ten, twenty,
perhaps more — some doctor had
finally isolated a strain of the
filterable virus of liguna fever
that could be used as a vaccine:
too weak to kill, but strong
enough to produce immunity
against its more virulent brother
strains. That opened up the Sitari
System for coloni2ation and ex-
ploration and meant that the men
who got there first would make
fortunes.

So he went to the base at Ke,
first selling his strip mine prop-
erty and disposing of his tools
and equipping his spaceship for
the intersolar trip; and at Ke
they shot him full of the dis-
ease. But his bloodstream built
no antibodies. The weakened

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

virus settled in his nervous system
and there was no way of getting
it out. The doctors were very
sorry for him, and they assured
him it was a one-in-ten-thousand
phenomenon. Thereafter, he suf-
fered recurrent paralytic attacks.

If it had not been for the ad-
vance warning — a pain at the
base of his spine, a moment of
violent trembling in his knees —
he would have been forced to
give up solitary strip mining alto-
gether. As it was, whenever he
felt the warning, he had to hurry
to the nearest colony and be hos-
pitalized for the duration of the
attack. He had had four such
warnings on this satellite, and
three times he had gone to Pasti-
ville on Helio and been cared for
and come away with less money
than he had gone with.

His bank credit, once large,
had slowly dribbled away, and
now he made just about enough
from his mining to care for him-
self during illness. He could not
afford to hunt for less dangerous,
less isolated work. It would not
pay enough, for he knew how to
do very little that civilization
needed done. He was finally
trapped; no longer could he af-
ford a pilot for the long flight
from Helio to a newer frontier,
and he could not risk the trip
alone.

He lay waiting for the pew
spasm of fever and stared at

Hertha who, this time, would
care for him here and he would
not need to go to a hospital. Per-
haps, after a little while, he would
be able to save enough to push
on, through the awful indifference
of space, to some new world
where, with luck, there would be
a sudden fortune.

Then he could go back to
civilization.

He realized bitterly that he
was merely telling himself he
would go back. He knew there
was only one direction he could
go, and that direction was not
back.

Hertha waited, hurt-eyed, mov-
ing her pudgy hands helplessly.

When the shaking subsided,
he explained through chattering
teeth about the oxygen register
across the room, and she went
away.

HPHE fever vanished completely,
leaving him listless. His hand,
lying on the rough blanket, was
abnormally white. He wiggled the
fingers, but he could not feel
the wool.

His mouth was dry and he
wanted a drink of water.

Hertha moved out of his range
of vision. He shifted his head on
the damp pillow and watched her
out of the corner of his eye.

He had never heard her real
name, but she did not seem to
object to his name for her.

FRESH AIR FIEND

91

I nm that which began;

Out of me the years roll;

Out of me God and man;

I am equal and whole;

God changes, and man,

And the form of them bodily;

I am the soul.

He tried to sit up again, but he
was very weak. He wanted to
quote it to her and tell her what
he had never told her: that the
name of it was Hertha and that
it had been Written long ago by a
man named Swinburne, and he
wanted to explain why he had
named her after a poem, because
it was very funny.

The harsh light hurt his eyes
and made him feel dizzy. He lay
watching her as she bent toward
the oxygen dial, wrinkling her
face in animal concentration, try-
ing to read it for him. Her puzzled
expression was pathetic; it re-
minded him of the first time he
had seen her.

The walls began to spin
crazily, for the hut had been
intended for only one person.

He remembered the first time
he saw her, cowering in a filthy
alleyway in the Miramus. At first
he thought she had taken some
food from a garbage pail and was
trying to conceal it by holding it
to her breast. But when the flare
of a rocket leaving the field two
blocks away lit the area for a
moment, he saw thht she was
holding a tiny welikin, terribly
mangled, looking as if it had just

been run over by a heavy trans-
port truck. He took it away from
her and threw it into the darkness,
shuddering.

“It was dead,” he said.

She continued to stare at him,
starting to cry silently, big, round,
salt tears that she brushed at
with reddened hands.

“My — my — ” she stammered.

He had an eerie feeling that
she was trying to say, “My baby,”
and he felt a little chill of pity
creep up his spine.

“What do you do?” he asked
kindly.

“Sweep floors. I work a little
for the Commander’s wife.
Around her home.”

“How did you get here?”

Still crying, she said, “On a
rocket.”

“Of course. What I meant was
...” But he did not need to
ask how she had gotten passed
the emigration officers. Some in-
fluential man — such things could
happen, especially when the des-
tination was a relatively new fron-
tier, such as Helio, where there
was little danger of investigation
— had seen to it that certain an-
swers were falsified; and a little
money and a corrupt official had
conspired to produce a passport
which read, “Mentally and physi-
cally fit for colonization.”

The influential man had, in ef-
fect, bought and paid for a per-
sonal slave to bring with him to

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

the stars. She would not know of
her legal rights. She would be
easily frightened and confused.
And then something had hap-
pened, and for some reason she
had been abandoned to shift for
herself. Perhaps she had run
away.

He looked away from her face.
This was none of his affair.

“Never mind,” he said. He
reached into his pocket and gave
her a. few coins and then turned
and walked rapidly away, sud-
denly anxious to see the bright,
remembered face of the young
colonist, Doris, Don’s friend; a
face that would chase away the
memory of this pathetic creature.

After a moment, he heard the
pad of her feet hopefully, fear-
fully following him.

DHE was standing beside his
^ cot again, and he concen-
trated to make the walls stop
spinning.

"It had a blue line.”

“Yes, I know. Where?”

She showed him with her fin-
gers. “This much.”

“Halfway up?” he prompted.

Dumbly, she nodded.

He looked at the plants,
“Hertha, listen. I’ve got to talk
before the paralysis comes back.
You’ll have to listen very care-
fully and try to understand. I’ll
be all right in about ten days.
You know that?”

She nodded again.

He took a deep breath that
seemed to catch in his throat.
“But you’ll have to go outside
before then.” *

Hertha whimpered and flut-
tered her hands nervously.

“I know you’re afraid," he said.
“I wouldn’t ask you. but it has
to be done. I can’t go. You can
see that, can’t you? It has to be
done.”

“Afraid!”

^’Nonsense!” he said harshly.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Put on the outside suit and noth-
ing can hurt you.”

Moaning in fear, she shook her
head.

“Listen, Hertha! You’ve got to
do it. For me!’' He did not like
to make the appeal personal. He
would have preferred to convince
her that fear of the outside was
groundless. It was not possible.
He had attempted, again and
again* to explain that the tiny
satellite with its poison air was
completely harmless as long as
she wore a surface suit. There
was no alien life, no possible
danger, outside this tiny square
of insulated hut and breathable
air. But it was useless. And the
personal appeal was the only
course remaining. It was as much
for her sake as his; she also
needed oxygen, but she could
never understand that fact.

“For you?” she asked.

■n

4*

FRESH AIR FIEND

93

He nodded, feeling the fever
rise. His face twisted in pain, and
he stared pleadingly into her cow-
like eyes : dumb eyes, animal eyes,
brown and trusting and . . .
loyal. The paralysis struck. His
voice would not come up out of
his chest and the dizziness
swamped his mind, and, in fever,
he was once again in Pastiville,
the nearest planet with an oxygen
atmosphere.

TTERTHA followed him up the
alley, out into the cheap
glitter of Windopole Avenue, a
rutted, smelly street which was
the center of the port-workers’
section. She followed him across
Windopole, up Venus, across
Nineshime. He turned into the
Lexo Building, which had be-
come shabby since he had seen
it last, when it had been freshly
painted. She did not follow him
inside, and he breathed a sigh of
relief and tried to put her out
of. his mind as he walked up the
stairs to the room 17B.

After a moment’s hesitation, his
heart knocking with pleasant an-
ticipation, he pressed the buzzer.

“Come in.”

He found the knob, twisted
open the door, entered.

“Why Jimmy!” the girl said in
what seemed to be surprise and
heavy delight. She crossed to him
quickly and offered her lips to be
kissed. “It’s good to see you!”

94

He took half a step backward,
trying to keep the shock out of
his face.

“Oh, it’s so good to see you,
Jimmy! Sit down. Tell me all
about it, about everything. Did
you make loads and loads of
money? When did you get back?
How’s the lig fever?”

He sat down, scarcely listening,
studying the apartment, feeling
vaguely ill. She was chattering,
he realized, to overcome her em-
barrassment.

“The books you ordered came.
I’ve got them right here. They’re
all there but some poetry or other.
There was a letter about that, but
the people just said they didn’t
have it in stock. I opened it to
see if it required an answer. Just
a sec. I’ll get them for you”
She left the room with quick, ner-
vous strides.

The apartment had been redone
since he had seen it. There were
now expensive drapes at the win-
dows, imported from somewhere;
a genuine Earth tapestry hung
above the door. Plump silken
pillows scattered on the floor and
a late model phono-general in
the corner, with a gleaming cabi-
net and record spool accessory
box.

She came back with the books,
neatly done up in a bundle.

“I guess you still read as much
as ever? Don said you always
' were a great reader.”

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

Uncomfortably, he stood up.

She put the books on a low
serving table, moistened her lips
to make them glistening red.
"Sit down, Jimmy! v

He still stood.

‘'Jimmy!" she said in mock
anger. "Sit down! Goodness, it’s
good to have a fellow Earthman
to talk to. I was so busy when
you came by the other time, we
scarcely had a minute to talk. I’d
just got here, you remember . . .
Well, I’m settled now, so we’ll
just have to have a nice, long
talk.”

He shifted on his feet.

"I don’t suppose you’ve heard
from Don?” Her v^ice was
strained, almost desperate. "Isn’t
it the oddest thing, him knowing
you and me, and both of us right
here?”

“He told me to write how you
were getting along?”

"... Oh.”

He smiled without humor and
felt like an old man. He wanted
to explain how he had looked for-
ward to seeing a person from his
own planet again. Now he wanted
to remind her of the girl he re-
membered: When she had just
arrived, still unpacking, eager to
start as a junior secretary for the
League.

"Thank you for letting me send
the books here,” he said. The
sickness was heavy in the pit of
his stomach, and suddenly he was

hard and bitter. He quoted softly:

"The world forsaken.

And out of mind
Honor and labor,

We shall not find
The slars unkind.”

"Old poetry? I guess you really
do read a^— ” Then understanding
made her eyes wince. "That
wasn’t intended to be very com-
plimentary, was it, Jimmy?”

Her name was no longer Doris;
it was any of a thousand, and
her perfume, heavy in* his nostrils,
was not her perfume or any in-
dividual's. She was there before
him; she was real. But along with
her were a thousand names and
a thousand scents. There was the
painful nostalgia of recognizing a
strange room.

Awkwardly he said, "I really
must go. I’d likb to have a long
talk, but — ”

Her lips parting in sudden ar-
tificiality, she crossed to him,
reached for his hand with her own.

In his mind was the heavy fu-
tility of repeating the same thing
senselessly until it lost all mean-
ing.

“I apologize about the poem,”
he said, because he knew that
it was not his place to speak of it.

"That’s all right,” she said with
hollow cheerfulness. Her mouth
jerked and her eyes darkened.
"Please don't go yet.”

The palms of his hands were

FRESH AIR FIEND

♦3

moist. He looked around the
apartment again, and he did not
want to ask, to bring it out in
cruel words. It was not the sort
of thing one asked.

“I really must go,” he repeated
levelly.

She put her hands on hi«
shoulders. “Please ..."

And then he saw that she in-
tended to bribe him in the only
way she knew how, and he said,
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Don.”

He saw relief on her face, and
then he was out of the apart-
ment, shaken. He felt as if he had
been kicked in the stomach, and
he was sickened and his hand
trembled. He wanted to talk to
someone and try to explain it.

Hertha was waiting when he
came out to the street.

rpHE fever passed; control of
his body returned.

“For you?” Hertha asked.

He half propped himself up on
the cot. He waved his hand
weakly. “Those dead plants. You
must throw them out and bring
in more.”

He listened tensely, imagining
that he could hear the precious
oxygen hiss in from the emer-
gency tank to freshen and re-
vitalize the dead air. Halfway
down on the dial. Not enough
for ten days, even for one person,
unless the air was replenished by
bringing in plants.

96

“Hertha, we’ve got to purify
this air. Now listen. Listen care-
fully, Hertha. You’ve seen me dig
up those plants on the outside?”
“Yes, I watch when you go out
I always watch, Jimmy.”

“Good. You’ve got to do the
same thing. You’ve got to go out
and dig up some plants. You've
got to bring them in here and
plant them the way I did. You
know which ones they are?”
“Yes,” she said.

He closed his eyes, trying to
think of a way to make her see
how vital a thing a tiny plant
could be. The complex chemistry
of it bubbled to the surface of
his mind. He wanted to tell her
why the plants died in the arti-
ficial human atmosphere and had
to be replaced every week or so.
He wanted to tell her, but he
was growing weaker.

“They purify the air by re-
leasing oxygen. You understand?”
She nodded her head dumbly.
“You must bring in a great
many plants, Hertha. Remember
that — a great many. Don’t forget
that. When you go outside,
through the locks, we lose air.
Air is very precious, so you must
bring in a great many plants.”
“Yes, Jimmy.”

“And you must plant them as
I did.”

“Yes, Jimmy.”

He began to talk faster, in a
race with the growing fever.

GALAXY SCIENCI FICTION

“I've gathered most of the oxy-
genating plants around the hut.
So you may have to go into the
forest to get enough.”

“The — the forest?”

“You must, Hertha! You
must!”

Her mouth twisted as if she
were ready to cry. “For you. Yes,
for you I will go into the forest.”
The fever came back. His mind
wandered away.

H E was walking in the open
air. He walked from Nine-
shime to Venus, down Venus to
Windopole, up Windopole to
“The Grand Eagle and Barrel.”
He went in. Hertha came with
him and sat down by his side at
the bar.

The bartender looked at him
oddly. “She with you, Mac?”

He turned to look at her; her
dumb, brown eyes met his. He
wanted to snarl; “Get the hell
away! Leave me alone!” But he
choked back the words. It was
not Hertha he was angry with.
She had done him no injury. She
had merely followed him, per-
haps because she knew of noth-
ing else to do; perhaps because
of temporary gratitude for the
coins; perhaps in hope that he
would buy her a drink. When the
anger passed, he felt sorry for
her again.

He said, “Want a drink?"

She shook her head without

changing expression.

He looked at her and shrugged
and thought that after a while
she would get tired and go away.
He ordered, and the bartender
brought a bottle and one glass.

Hertha continued to stare at
him; he tried to ignore her.

He drank. He thought it would
get easier to ignore her as the level
of the bottle fell. It didn’t. He
drank some more. It grew late.

“I gotta explain,” he said, the
liquor swirling in his mind.

She waited, cow-eyed.

“Ernest Dowson. Man’s name.
He wrote a poem — Beats SoIi~
tudo. I wanna explain this. Man
lived long, long, long, long time
ago. You listenin’? Okay. That’s
good. That’s fine. He said — it’s
ver* importan’ you should unner-
stan’ this — he said how you put
honor and labor out of your mind
when you . . . you’re out here.
What he meant, it’s . . . it’s . . .
you see . . . Now I gotta make
you see all this. So you listen real
close while I tell it to you. There
was a man named ..."

He wanted to explain how the
frontier does things to people.
He wanted to explain how society
is a tight little box that keeps
everything locked up and hidden,
but how society breaks down and
becomes fluid in the stars, and
how people explode and forget
what they learned in civilization,
and how everything is unstable.

FRESH AIR FIEND

97

"This man, his name's — M he
•aid.

He wanted to explain how the
harsh elements and brute nature
end space, the God-awful empti-
ness and indifference and the
tense of aloneness and selfishness
end . . .

There were a thousand things
he wanted to tell her. They were
ell the things he had thought
ebout as he followed the frontier.
If he could get it all down right,
he could make her see why he
had to follow the frontier as long
as there was anything left inside
of him.

Maybe the rest of the people
out here were that way, too.
Maybe he had seen it in Doris’
eyes tonight. Maybe that was
why society broke down in the
•tars and civilization came only
when men and women like him
were gone.

He did not want to know how
the rest felt. He did not know
whether it would be more terri-
fying to learn that he was alone,
or that he was not alone.

But just for tonight, he could
tell the alien creature beside him.
It would be safe to tell Her — if
the idea had not rusted inside of
him so long that there were no
longer any words to fit it.

But first he had to make her
»ee his home planet and the great
cities and the landscaped valleys
#nd the majestic mountains and

the people. He had to make her
see the vast sweep of the explorers
who first carried the race to a
million planets, who devised
faster-than-light ships and metals
to make the ships out of, metals
to hold their forms in the crucible
beyond normal space. He had to
make her see the colonists who
tied all the world together with
spans of steel commerce and then
moved on in ever-widening
circles. He wanted to give her the
whole picture.

Then he wanted to explain the
surge, the restlessness of the men
at the frontier. Different men, he
thought : from the womb of civili-
zation, but unlike their brothers.
The men who pushed out and out
Searching, always searching. He
was afraid to find out if their
reasons were the same as his. For
himself, he had seen a thousand
planets and a thousand new life-
fdrms. But it was not enough.
There were the vast, blank,
empty, indifferent reaches of
space beyond him, and that was
what drove him on.

This fie wanted to say to
Hertha: No matter how far you
go, the thing that gets you is
that there’s nothing that cares;
no matter how far, the thing is
that nothing cares; the thing is
that nothing cares. It gets you.
And you have to go on because
some day. somewhere, there may
be — something.

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

But he lost the trend of his
thoughts completely, and he had
another drink.

“Decent people come out
here ...”

What was he going to say about
decent people?

“Stupid!" he cried, slapping
her in the face.

She rubbed her cheek. “Stu-
pid?”

He wanted to cry,, for he had
not known that he was brutal.
“Can’t you see?” he screamed,
and it was necessary to explain
it to her; and then it was not
necessary. “You’re like the awful,
indifferent, mindless blackness of
space, unreasoning!”

“Unreasoning,” she repeated
carefully.

“You’re Hertha !**

“I’m Hertha,” she said.

rjlHE period of calmness that
■*- returned after the fever was
crystal and lucid, preceding, he
knew, a severe, prolonged seizure.

“I’m afraid," she told him,
shivering, “but I will go.”

He watched her get into the
light surface suit, clamp down the
helmet with trembling hands. He
was shaking with nervousness as
she hesitated at the lock. Then
she pulled it open. It clicked be-
hind her. He heard the brief hiss
of the oxygen replacing the air
that had whooshed out.

And he felt sorry for her, alone.

terrified, on the scaly, hard sur-
face of the tiny satellite. He closed
his eyes, pictured her walking
past his strip mine, past the
gleaming heap of minerals ready
for the transport.

He felt tears in his eyes and
yet he could not entirely explain
his feelings toward her — half
fear, sometimes half affection. But
more important than that: Why
was she with him? What were her
feelings? Had some sense of grati-
tude made her come? Affection?

He could not understand her.
At times she seemed beyond all
understanding. Her responses were
mindless, almost mechanical, and
that frightened him.

He remembered her dumb,
apologetic caresses and her pa-
thetically clumsy tenderness — or
reflex; he could never be sure—
and her eager yet reluctant hands
and the always slightly hurt,
slightly accusing look in her eyes,
as if at every instant she was
ready for a stinging blow, and her
great sighs, muted as if fearing to
be heard and . . .

He was drunk, screaming
meaninglessly, and the bartender
threw him out. The pavement cut
his face. When he awoke, it was
morning and he was in a strange
room and she was in bed beside
him.

She said, “I am Hertha. I
brought you home. I will go with
you.”

FRESH AIR FIEND

The paralysis set in. He could
not move. The tears froze on his
cheeks, and he lay inert, thinking
of her almost mindlessly fighting
for his life in the alien outside.

Then she was back in the hut.
So soon?

She looked at him, smiled
through the transparent helmet
at him. He could hear the pre-
cious oxygen hiss in to compen-
sate for the air that had been lost
when she entered.

He could see her eyes. They
were proud. Relieved, too, as if
■he had been afraid he would be
gone when she returned. He' felt
she had hurried back to be sure
that he was still there.

She knelt by the flower bed
and, without removing her suit,
she held up the plant proudly. He
could see the hard -packed dirt in
the roots. Fascinated, he watched
her scrape a planting hole. He
watched her set the plant deli-
cately and pat the soil with care.

Then she stood up.

He tried to move, to cry out.
He could not.

He watched her until she went
out of the range of his fixed eyes.
She was going to the airlock
again.

After a moment he heard the
familiar hiss of oxygen.

She was going to get a great
number of plants.

But one at a time.

—KRIS NEVILLE

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP. MAN-
AGEMENT. AND CIRCULATION REQUIRED
BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST
24. 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE ACTS OF
MARCH 3. 1933. AND JULY 3, 194(5 (Title
39. United States Code. Section 233) of Galaxy
Science Fiction, published monthly at New
Yo/k. N. Y. for October 1, 1951.

1. The names and addresses of the publisher,
editor, managing editor, and business managers
are: Publisher, Galaxy .Publishing Corp.. 421
Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y.: Editor.
Hoiace Gold, 505 East 14th Street, New York
City; Managing editor. Vera Cerutti, 1 Washing-
ton Square North, New York City; Business
manager, none.

2. The owner is: (If owned by a corpora-
tion, its name and address must be stated and
also immediately thereunder the names and
addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1
percent or more of total amount o$ stock. If
not owned by a corporation, the names and
addresses of the individual owners must be
given. If owned by a partnership or other un-
incorporated film, its name and address, as well
as that of each individual memfier. must be
given.) Galaxy Publishing Corp., 421 Hudson
Street. New York 14. N. Y. ; (stockholder)
Bernard Kaufman. 2 Horatio Stieet, New York.
N. Y.

3. The known bondholders, mortgagees, and
other security holders owning or holding 1 per-
cent or more of total amount of bonds, mort-
gages, or other securities are: (If there are none,
so state.) None.

4. Paragraphs 2 and 3 include, in cases where
the stockholder or security holder appears upon
the books of the company as trustee or in any
other fiduciary relation, the name of the person
or corporation for whom such trustee rs acting;
also the statements in the two paragraphs show
the affiant'i lull knowledge and belief as to the
circumstances and conditions under which stock-
holders and security holders who do not appear
upon the books of the company at trustees, hold
stock and securities in a capacity other than
that of a bona fide owner,

5. The average number of copies of each is'ue
of this publication sold or distributed, tlimugh
the mails or otherwise, to paid subscribers dur-
ing the 12 months preceding the date shown
above was: (This information is required from
daily, weekly, semiweekly, and ttiweekly news-
papers only.)

GALAXY PUBLISHING CORP.

BERNARD KAUFMAN, President

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 9th
da, of October, 1951. Donald M. Garvelmann,
Commissioner of Deeds, New York City. New
York County Clerk s No. 85. Commission ex-
pires August 14, 1953.

100

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION-

Installment f

the

demolished

man

By ALFRED BESTEF.

As with oil premeditated murder, one thing was
unpremeditated. Could Reich, with his riches —
and a crooked Esper — correct it quickly enough?

Illustrated by DON SI8LET

SYNOPSIS

When telepathy emerged as an
extracted recessive characteristic,
possessors of extra-sensory per-
ception became valuable members
of society. Every industry and
profession had its Esper s, who, in
addition to having normal skills,

were able to probe the mind for
unknown or concealed meanings.
Members of the Esper Guild and
known as “peepers," they were
divided into classes according to
the depth they could penetrate :
3rds could peep the conscious
mind; 2n ds dug past that to the
preconscious and subconscious;

DEMOLISHED

MAN

101

while Is ts, the elite of the Guild,
could explore every crevice of
the deeply buried unconscious
mind.

Because of Espers, premedi-
tated murder was doomed. Tele-
paths could peep the intent of a
killer before the crime, or peep
the evidence needed for convic-
tion after the murder. No killer
had escaped the dreaded Demo-
lition Chamber in Kingston Hos-
pital in 70 years.

Despite this, Ben Reich, pi-
ratical owner of Sacrament, Inc.,
w as driven to plan the murder of
his bitter commercial enemy,
Craye D' Courtney, of the
D’ Courtney Cartel on Mars. A
recurrent nightmare about a Man
With No Face made him realize
that killing was the only solution
to the economic war.

With the aid of Augustus TS,
E.M.D. 1 ( Esper Medical Doctor
Is/ class'), and Jerry Church, a
2nd class peeper ostracized from
the Guild, Reich went to a party
at Maria Beaumont’s house. In
the course of an ancient game
called “ Sardine ” which Reich in-
stigated by sending his hostess an
old book containing the game,
Reich slipped up to the hidden
suite of D’ Courtney and mur-
dered him. The killing was unex-
pectedly witnessed by D’ Court-
ney’s daughter, Barbara, who ran
from the house in hysterical ter-
ror with the murder weapon in
her hand, and mysteriously dis-

appeared into the giant city.

Reich, using a song that had
been fiendishly written on order
to stick in the memory like a fish
hook, had prevented peepers from
probing his intent to murder. Now
he had to get out and find the
girl. But he forced T8 to stay
with him so they could make
an unsuspicious exit. Thanking
Maria Beaumont for the inter-
esting evening, however, Reich
found blood falling from the ceil-
ing where D’ Courtney’s dead
body lay in the room above, spat-
tering on his cuff.

The slaying was discovered.
Reich was trapped in the house
with his victim, while the one
witness who could bring him to
Demolition was free to go any-
where she pleased . . . even to
Preston Powell, Esper Prefect of
the Police Psychotic Division . . .
a Is/, deadly in his ability to
pry into unconscious motivations.

VII

AT 12:30 a. m., the Emer-
gency Patrol arrived at
1 m Beaumont House in re-
sponse to precinct notification:
“G Z. Beaumont. YLP-R” which,
translated, meant: “An act or
omission forbidden by law has
been reported at Beaumont
House, 9 Park South."

At 12:50, the Panty Pickups
arrived in response to an anony-
mous call: “Get up to The Gilt

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

1102

Corpse. Man dead in a brawl.”
• They were summarily ejected by
1 the police and hung hopefully
I around fche house.

At 1 :D0 A. M., Preston Powell
& arrived at Beaumont House in
(^response to a frantic call from a
| deputy inspector: “I tell you,
| Powell, it’s Felony Triple -A! I
5 don’t know whether to be grate-
11' ful or scared; but I know none of
us is equipped to handle it.”

I “What can’t you handle?”

I “Look here, Powell. Murder’s
^abnormal. Only a distorted
HThought Pattern can produce
Ideath by violence. Right?”
l x “Yes.”

r “Which is why there hasn’t
■been a successful Triple- A in
\ over seventy years. A man can’t
i walk around with a distorted pat-
item, hatching murder. You peep-
f ers always pick ’em up before they
go into action.”

| “So far,” agreed Powell. “Now
► here’s a killing that must have
fbeen carefully planned . . . and
/ the killer was never noticed, even
Iby Maria Beaumont’s peeper
Secretaries. That means there
couldn’t have been, anything to
^notice. He must have a passable
[ pattern and yet be abnormal
^enough to murder. How the hell
can we resolve a paradox like
^that?”

[ “No idea yet. Any prospects?"

“Nothing but inconsistencies.
We don’t know what killed
j\!D’Courtney; his daughter’s dis-

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

appeared ; somebody robbed
D’Courtney’s guards of one hour
and we can’t figure how. And
besides — ”

“Don’t go any further. I'll be
right over.”

The great hall of Beaumont
House blazed with harsh white
light. Uniformed police were
everywhere. The white-smocked
technicians from Lab were scur-
rying like beetles. Four Moltecs,
glittering snails of coils and glow-
ing tubes, clucked fussily over
the floors, nursed by Moltec
squads who worked with the
drilled precision of eclipse camera
crews. In the center of the hall,
the party guests were assembled.

As Powell came down the east
ramp, he felt the wave of hostility
that greeted him. He telepathed
quickly to Charley $$on, Police
Inspector 2: “ What’s the situa-
tion, Chas?”

“Scramble.”

Switching to their informal po-
lice code of scrambled images,
reversed meanings and personal
symbols, $$on continued: “Peep-
ers here. Play it safe.” He brought
Powell up to date.

“/ see. Nasty. What’s everybody
doing lumped out on the door f
You staging something ?”

“ The villain-friend act.”

“ Necessary ?”

“ It's a rotten crowd. Pampered.
You'll have to do some tricky
coaxing to get anything out of
them. I’ll be the villain; you be

* 101

their friend, of course

“Right. Start recording

Halfway down the ramp, Pow-
ell halted. An expression of
shocked indignation appeared on
his face.

“$$son!” he snapped. Every eye
turned to him.

Inspector $$on faced Powell.
In a brutal voice, he said: “Here,
sir.”

“Is this your concept of the
proper conduct of an investiga-
tion? To herd a group of innocent
people together like cattle?”

“They’re not innocent,” $$on
growled. ‘‘A man’s been killed.”

“$$on, they will be presumed
to be innocent and treated with
every courtesy until the murderer
is uncovered.”

“What?” $$on sneered. “This
rotten, lousy, high -society pack
of hyenas — ”

“How dare you! Apologize at
once!”

$$on took a deep breath and
clenched his fists angrily, then
turned to the staring guests. “My
apologies,” he grumbled.

“And I’m warning you, $$on,”
Powell snapped, “if anything like
this happens again, I’ll break you.
Now get out of my sight.”

Powell descended to the floor
of the hall and smiled at the
guests. “Ladies and gentlemen, of
course I know you all by sight.
I’m not that famous, so let me
introduce myself. Preston Powell,
Prefect of the Psychotic Division.

Two antiquated titles, eh? Pre-
fect and Psychotic. We won’t let
them bother us.” He advanced to-
ward Maria Beaumont with hand
outstretched. “You’ve had a try-
ing time, I know. These boors in
uniform.”

A pleased rustle ran through the
guests. The glowering hostility
began to fade. Maria took Pow-
ell’s hand dazedly, mechanically
beginning to preen herself.

“Dear Prefect ...” She was
an aging little girl, clinging to
his arm. “I’ve been so terrified.”

Powell snapped his fingers be-
hind him. To the captain who
stepped forward, he said: “Con-
duct Madame and her guests to
the study. No guards.”

The captain cleared his throat.
“About Madame’s guests. One
of them arrived after the felony
was reported. An attorney, Mr.
Jordan.”

Powell found Sam Jordan, At-
torney-At-Law 2, in the crowd,
and telepathed to him.

“ What brought you here,
Sam?”

“ Business . Called by my
cli (Ben Reich) ent”

“ That shark. Wait here with
Reich. We'll get squared off .”

“ That was an effective act with
$$on,”

“Hell. You crack our scram-
ble ?”

“ Not a chance. But I know you
two. Gentle Chas playing a bully
is one for the books.”

I ©4

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

$$on broke in from across the
hall where he was apparently
•ulking: “Don't blow it, Sam."

“Are you crazy?” At the sug-
gestion that Jordan might smash
the most sacred ethic of the
Guild, he radiated a blast of in-
dignation that made $$on grin.

All this in the second while
Powell kissed Maria’s brow with
chaste devotion and gently disen-
gaged himself from her tremulous
grasp.

“Ladies and gentlemen — to the
■tudy, please.”

The crowd of guests moved
off, conducted by the captain.
They were chattering with re-
newed animation. Through the
buzz and the laughter, Powell felt
the iron elbows of a rigid tele-
pathic block. He recognized those
elbows and permitted his aston-
ishment to show.

“G us! Gus TS! n

“Oh. Hello, Powell .”

“You? Lurking 8s Slinking ?"

“Gus?” $$on popped out.
’“Here? I never tagged him.”

“ What the devil are you hiding
tor?”

Chaotic response of anger, cha-
grin, fear of lost reputation, self-
deprecation, shame —

“Ease off, Gus. Won't do you
any harm to let a little scandal
rub off on you. Make you more
human. Stay here 8s help. Got a
hunch I can use another lsf. This
one is going to be a Triple- A
stinker”

k FTER the hall was cleared of
guests, Powell examined the
three men who remained with
him. Sam Jordan was a heavy-set
man, thick, solid, with a shining
bald head and a friendly blunt-
featured face. Little T8 was ner-
vous and twitchy . . . more so
than usual. Too bad the plastic
surgeons couldn’t add six inches
to his height. Would solve a lot
of T8’s psychological problems.

And the notorious Ben Reich.
Powell inspected him for the first
time. Tall, broad-shouldered, de-
termined, exuding a tremendous
aura of charm and power. There
was kindliness in that power, but
it was corroded by the habit of
tyranny. Reich’s eyes were fine
and keen, but his mouth was too
small and sensitive and looked
oddly like a scar. A magnetic
man, with something about him
that was repelling.

Reich smiled. Spontaneously,
they shook hands.

“Do you take everybody off
guard like this, Reich?” .

“The secret of my success,”
Reich grinned.

An unexpected chemotropism
was drawing them together. It
was dangerous. Powell tried to
shake it off.

He turned to Jordan: “Now
then, Sam?”

“Reich called me in to repre-
sent him and all the other sus-
pects. No telepathy. Pres. This
has got to stay on the objective

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

105

level. I’m here to see' that it does.
I’ll have to be present at every
examination.”

“You can’t stop peeping, Sam.
You’ve got no legal right. We can
dig out all we can — ”

“Provided it’s with the consent
of the examinee. I’m here to tell
you whether you’ve got that con-
sent or not.”

Powell looked at Reich. “You
understand your legal rights and
duties?”

“Vaguely.”

“Vaguely?” Powell smiled. “I’m
supposed to believe that from the
Shark of Sacrament?”

“Sometimes the shark plays
possum. This is one of those
times.”

“Well, I’ll lay it out for you.
Every man has the right to refuse
telepathic examination . . . just as
he has the right to refuse oral
interrogation.”

“We’ve still got the Fifth
Amendment,” Jordan said.

Powell nodded. “But the law
holds that you can’t answer gome
questions and refuse to answer
others. It’s got to be all or none.”

“I understand,” said Reich.

“Of course, if you stand on the
Fifth Amendment in a Triple-A
Felony and refuse to answer any
questions in any manner, you
force us to draw the conclusion
that you have guilt to conceal.”

“You’re not required to respond
to that,” Jordan cut in.

“I was going to ask about the

peeping,” Reich said.

“Well,” Powell replied, “if you
decide to open the door, you’ve
got to answer all questions, but
you don’t have to submit to tele-
pathic examination. That’s op-
tional. Oral replies will satisfy the
law.”

“In fact,” Jordan added, “the
law requires the police examiner
to request permission for a TP
probe on each separate question.
If you refuse permission, I’m here
to make it stick. You don’t have
to confide anything in me. You
tell me you don’t want to be
peeped and I’ll see to it that
you’re not. I don’t have to know
what’s in your mind to do that.”
“Of course,” Powell said pleas-
antly, “there are many ques-
tions you can’t possibly object to
being peeped on. For instance,
if I asked you what you had for
dinner tonight . . . ”

“He’d have every right in the
world to refuse telepathic exam-
ination on that point.”

Powell turned to Reich. “Want
it that way?”

Reich nodded.

“Sam’s a 2nd. I’m a 1st. I can
pull slick stuff on him. Want to
wait until you can get hold of
another 1st to represent you? It’s
your right.”

“No,” Reich said slowly, “I
trust Jordan. I. trust you. I don’t
think he’ll let you pull any stuff
Oh him. I don’t think you’ll try.”
“Thanks. What was the idea

106

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

of getting a lawyer so fast? Are
you mixed up in this mess?”
"You don’t run Sacrament
without building up a stockpile
of secrets that have got to be
protected.”

“Why should Jordan represent
the other guests?”

“ Get out of there, Pres.”

“ Stop throwing blocks. Pirn just
trying to get his general emotional
response to the rest of the sus-
pects.”

'‘You've got no right to get it
that way.”

“The hell I haven't. That one
was decided by the Carmody
Case twenty-five years ago. We
can build up the general back-
ground so long as we don't look
for specific data.”

“Yes, provided the oral ques-
tion clearly indicates the purpose
and scope of the peeping. Yours
did nothing of the kind.”

“I’ll rephrase the question,”
Powell said, before Reich could
answer. “Did you feel that any
or all of the other guests particu-
larly required the services of Mr.
Jordan, a leading Esper Attor-
ney? I’d like to peep your answer
on that for your general emo-
tional response.”

“You don’t have to give per-
mission,” Jordan said.

“I won’t,” Reich replied.

“Will you give me an oral
answer?”

“I will,” Reich said. “They
were all scared. Maria was pet-

rified. She begged me to help.
This was the best I could do.”
“Would you care to tell me
why you refused to be peeped on
that answer?”

“Don’t even bother,” Jordan
advised. “Pres has no right to
ask that. No one has. The Matter
of the Estate of Alan Courtney
settled that.”

“Hell,” Powell said ruefully.
“You’ve stopped me. Let’s start
the investigation.”

They turned and walked to-
ward the study. Across the hall,
$$on scrambled and asked : “Pres,
why'd you let Sam tie you in
legal knots?”

“While he was busy tying the
legal .knots, J got the one thing
/ was after ”

“ What was that?”

“An answer on the record from
Ben Reich . He's opened the door ,
Chas. He can’t close it any more.” 1
There was a moment of stunned
silence, and then, as Powell went
through the North arch to the
study, a broadcast of fervent ad-
miration followed him: “I bow,
Pres. I bow to the Master .”

T HE “study” of Beaumont
House was constructed on the
lines of a Turkish Bath. The floor
was a mosaic of jacinth, spinel
and sunstone. The walls, cross-
hatched with gold wire cloisonne,
were glittering with inset syn-
thetic stones . . . ruby, emerald,
garnet, chrysolite, amethyst, to-

i m

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

pa? ... all containing various
portraits of the owner. There were
scatter rugs of brocatelle, and
scores of chairs and lounges.

Powell entered the room and
walked directly to the center,
leaving Reich. T8 and Jordan be-
hind them. He looked around
him, accurately gauging the mass
psyche of these sybarites, and
measuring the tactics he would
have to use.

He lit a cigarette. “You all
know, of course, that I'm a peeper.
Probably this fact has alarmed
some of you. You imagine that
I’m standing here like some fab-
ulous monster, probing your
mental plumbing. Well, Jordan
wouldn't let me if I could. And,
frankly, mass peeping is a trick
no Esper can perform. It’s diffi-
cult enough to probe a single in-
dividual. It’s impossible when
dozens of Telepathic Patterns are
confusing the picture. And when
a group of unique, highly individ-
ual people like yourselves is gath-
ered. we find ourselves completely
at your mercy.”

“And Tie said / had charm,”
Reich muttered.

“Tonight,” Powell went on,
“you were playing a delightful
ancient game called ‘Sardine.’ I
wish I had been invited, Madame.
You must remember me next
time ...”

“I will,” Maria promised. "I
will, dear Prefect.”

“In the course of that game.

old D’Courtney was killed. We’re
almost positive it was premedi-
tated murder. We’ll be certain
after Lab has finished its work.
But let’s assume that it is a
Triple-A Felony. That will enable
us to play another ancient game
called ‘Murder.’ ”

There was an interested re-
sponse from the guests. Powell
continued on the same casual
course, carefully turning the most
shocking crime in seventy years
into a morsel of amusement.

“In the game of ‘Murder,’ ” he
said, “a make-believe victim is
killed. A make-believe detective
must discover who killed the vic-
tim. He asks questions of the
make-believe suspects. Everyone
must tell the truth except the
killer, who is permitted to lie. The
detective compares stories, de-
duces who is lying, and uncovers
the killer. I thought you might
enjoy playing this game."

A voice asked, “How?”
Another added, “I'm just one
of the tourists.”

“A murder investigation,” Pow-
ell smiled, “explores three facets
of a crime. First, the motive. Sec-
ond, the method. Third, the op-
portunity. Our Lab people are
taking care of the second and
third. The first we can discover
in our game. If we do, we’ll be
able to crack the other two prob-
lems that have Lab stumped now.
Did you know that they can’t
figure out what killed D’Court-

108

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

ney? Did you know £hat D’Court-
ney’s daughter has disappeared?
She left the house while you
were playing ‘Sardine.’ Did you
know that D’ Courtney’s guards
were mysteriously short-cir-
cuited? Somebody robbed them
of a full hour in time. We’d all
like to know how.”

They were hanging at the very
edge of the trap, fereathless, fas-
cinated. It had to be sprung with
infinite caution.

“Death, disappearance, and
subjective time machines . . .
we can find out all about them
through motive. I’ll be the make-

believe detective; you 11 be the
make-believe suspects. You’ll tell
me the truth ... all except the
killer, of course. We’ll expect him
to lie. But we’ll trap him and
bring this party to a triumphant
finish if you’ll give me permission
to make a telepathic examination
of each of you.”

“Oh!” cried Maria in alarm.

“Wait* Madame. All I want is

your permission. I won’t have to
peep. Because, you see, if all
the innocent suspects grant per-
mission, then the one who refuses
must be guilty.”

“Can he pull that?” Reich
whispered to Jordan.

Jordan nodded.

“Just picture the scene for a
moment.” Powell was building
the drama for them, turning the
room into a stage. “I ask for-
mally: ‘Will you permit me to
make a TP examination?’ Then
I go around this room.” He began
a slow circuit, bowing to each
of the guests in turn. “And the
answers come: ‘Yes. Yes. Of

course. Why not?' And then sud-
denly a dramatic pause.” Powell
•topped before Reich, erect, ter-
rifying. “ ‘You, sir,’ I repeat. *Will
you give me your permission to
peep?’ ”

They all watched, hypnotized.
Even Reich was aghast, trans-
fixed by the pointing finger and
the fierce scowl.

“Hesitation. His face flushes
red. then ghastly white as the
blood drains out. You hear the
tortured refusal: ‘No!’” The Pre-
fect turned and enveloped them
all with an electrifying gesture:
“And in that thrilling moment,
we know we have captured the
killer!”

He almost had them. Almost.
But Tom Moyse had bastardy
in his soul; Gloria Blomefield, Jr.,
had adultery in her sout; Tony

Asj had shame in her soul; Nick
Boutman had perjury in his soul.

“No!” Maria cried. They all
shot to their feet and shouted:
“No!. No!”

“// was a beautiful try, Pres,
but there's your answer."

Powell was still charming in
defeat. “I’m sorry, ladies and gen-
tlemen, but I really can’t blame
you. Only a fool would trust a
cop.” He sighed. “One of my
assistants will tape the oral state-
ments from those of you who care
to make statements. Mr. Jordan
will be on hand to advise and
protect you.” He glanced dole-
fully at Jordan. “ And louse me."

“ Don’t pull at my heart-strings
like that, you faker. This is the
best Triple- A in seventy years.
My big chance. Are you going to
sob me out of it?"

“Hell.” Powell said. He winked
at Reich left the room.

L AB was finished in the lavish
orchid Wedding Suite. Kr^t,
abrupt, testy; harrassed, handed
Powell the reports and said, “This
is a lousy assignment!”

Powell looked down at
D’Courtney’s body. “Suicide?”
he snapped. He was always pep-
pery with Kr^t, who was com-
fortable with no other relation-
ship.

“Not a chance. No weapon.”
“What killed him?”

“We don’t know.”

“Why, he’s got a hole in his

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

■ | Q

110

head you could jet through to the
Moon!”

“Entry above the uvula. Exit
below the fontanelle. Death in-
stantaneous. But what drilled the
hole through his skull? We don’t
know!”

“Hard ray?”

“No burn.”

“Crystalization?”

“No freeze.”

“Nitro vapor charge?”

“No ammonia residue.”
“Acid?”

“Acid spray couldn’t burst the
back of his skull like that.”

“A dirk or a knife?”
“Impossible. Have you any
idea how much force is necessary
to penetrate like this? Couldn’t
be done.”

“Well, I’ve just about ex-
hausted penetrating weapons. No,
wait. What about a projectile?”
“Not a chance here. There’s
no projectile. None in the wound.
None in the room.”
“Damnation!”

“I agree.”

“Have you got anything for
me? Anything at all?”

“Yes. He was eating candy be-
fore his death. Found a fragment
of gel in his mouth . . . bit of
standard candy wrapping.”
“And?”

“No candy in the suite.”

“He might have eaten it all.”
“No candy in his stomach.
Anyway, he wouldn’t be eating
candy with that throat.”

“Why not?”

“Psychogenic cancer. Bad. He
couldn’t talk, let alone eat
candy.”

“Hell and damnation. We need
that weapon, whatever it is.”

“Go find the daughter,” Kri/^t
said. “I’m telling, you she’s got
it. She popped the old man and
blew out of here with it.”

“You mean to tell me she went
to all this trouble? Waited until
they were visiting? Waited until
the middle of the night? Then
killed him this bizarre way? Tell
me why.”

“I can’t tell you why she killed
him,” Kr^t said with frantic
calm. “I can’t tell you how she
killed him.” Suddenly he burst
out: “I can’t even tell time! Pow-
ell, I resign.”

Which made Kr^t’s seven-
teenth resignation in two years.
Ignoring it, Powell fingered the
sheaf of reports, staring at the
waxen body, whistling a crooked
tune. He remembered reading a
romance once about an Esper
who could read a corpse . . . like
that old myth about photograph-
ing the retina of a dead eye. He
wished it could be done.

“Well,” he sighed at last, “they
licked us on motive, and they’ve
licked us on method. Let’s hope
the Moltec crew can give us some-
thing on opportunity, Kr^t, or
we’ll never bring Reich down.”

“Reich? Ben Reich? What
about him?”

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

111

“It’s Gus T8 I’m worried about
most/' Powell murmured. “If
he’s mixed up in this . . . What?
Oh, Reich? He’s the killer, Krl^t.
I slicked Sam Jordan down in
Maria Beaumont’s study. Staged
an act and misdirected Sam while
I peeped his client. This an off
the record, of course, but I got
enough to convince me Reich’s
our man.”

“You did?” Kr^t exclaimed.

“But that’s a long way from
Demolition, brother. A long, long
way.” ^

Moodily, Powell took leave of
the Lab Chief, loafed through the
anteroom and descended to field
headquarters in the picture gal-
lery.

“And I like Reich,” he mut-
tered.

npHE Moltec (Molecular Dis-
tortion Detector) was simply
a mechanical bloodhound. In the
XXth Century, when explosive
firearms were in use, it was the
custom of malefactors to destroy
the identifying numbers on their
weapons with file and acid. They
were unaware that the blow of
the tool which punched the num-
bers into the weapon so altered
the molecular structure of the
metal that the figures could be
detected by X-ray and other
methods after the surface had
been obliterated.

The Moltec operated similarly.
You might walk carefully across

a floor, with dry feet, sweeping
away all footprints, leaving no
visible train — unaware that your
step left an unmistakable and
characteristic molecular stress
trail. This trail the Moltec fol-
lowed, crawling over floor, ramp
and stairs, clucking and buzzing
monomraniacally.

The trail was printed in tiny
arrows on a gridded scald map
of transparent plastic film,
printed in a separate color for
each suspect. When the investiga-
tion was completed, the transpar-
encies were stacked one on top
of the other, and when you looked
down into the pile you saw at a
glance all the twisting, turning
human paths.

$$on set the packed charts be-
fore Powell, who examined the
twining colored threads for a
moment and then looked up
wearily.

“/ know, Pres. It would have
been easier if they hadn't spotted
D’ Courtney’s blood dripping
through the floor. But when they
all tore up there in a posse, that
loused us.”

Powell inspected the collective
map again. Threads of color wan-
dered through the great hall of
Beaumont House, the music
room, the study, the stage, the
fountains, and finally into the
Panty Projection Room. From
there a thick river of prismatic
color streamed back through
the hall, up the stairs, through the

m

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

picture gallery into the Wedding
Suite.

“ There's the girl.” $$on indi-
cated a yellow trail of arrows
that started in one of the bed-
rooms of the Wedding Suite,
came down the corridor, entered
the orchid room, and, after a few
confused circles, left the room and
led straight through the house to
the street.

Powell and $$on began the
lightning exchanges that charac-
terized peeper conversations :
“Who's this, Chas? The peach-
and -emerald colored trails. They
left the house too.”

“ Couple of guests who couldn't
stomach that Sardine game, bless
'em. Left early. One is a psych-
song-writer named Duffy Wyg&.
The other's Wally Chervil's boy.
Young Galen.”

“Oops.”

“No, he's in the right orbit.
Pres. He doesn't belong to Beau-
mont’s Carnal Circle. I got it
straight from the peeper secre-
taries. Gaily crashed the party on
a bet. Apparently he couldn't jet
out fast enough.”

“Pick ’em up anyway and have
a talk, Charley.”

“In the works.”

“Right. Which trail is Reich's?”
“Why Reich in particular?
What? Him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“My God. 1 What it must be
like to be a Is/.”

“Take your Guild exams and

find out. Which is Reich?”

“ Took 'em again last month.
Failed again. Reich is the scarlet
trail.”

“Thought so. Look at it, Chas.
Reich went up to the orchid suite
twice and came down twice. See
that?”

“Yep. And?”

“That could be opportunity.
He went up once with the posse ;
but he went up once before to

kill D’Courtney.”

“You'll never prove it. Pres.'*
“Can the guards help?”

“Nope. They've lost one solid
hour. Krl/ot says their retinal
rhodopsin was destroyed. That's
the visual purple . . . what you
see with, ,4 s far as the guards
are concerned , they were on duty
and alert. Nothing happened un-
til the mob suddenly appeared
and Maria was screeching at them
for falling asleep on the job . . .
which they swear they did not.”
“But we know it was Reich.”
“You know it was Reich. No-
body else does.”

“He went up there while the
guests were playing the Sardine
game. He kerflumoxed the guards’
visual purple some way and
robbed them of an hour of time.
He went into the orchid suite and
killed D'Courtney. The girl got
mixed up in it, somehow, which
is why she ran.”

“How did he kerffumox? How
did he kill D'Courtney? And
why?”

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

“/ don't know any of the an-
swers . . . yet."

“ You'll never get a Demolition
that way."

“That I do know."

“You've got to show motive ,
method and opportunity , objec-
tively. The Moltec evidence wont
stand up alone. It'll need power-
ful supporting evidence. All
you’ve got is a peeper’s knowledge
that it was Reich who killed
D' Courtney."

“ Uh-huh

“Did you peep how or why?"

“ Couldn’t get in deep enough
. . . not with Sam Jordan watch-
ing me.”

“ And you’ll probably never get
in. Sam's too careful.”

“ Damnation ! Charley, we need
the girl."

“ Barbara D' Courtney?"

“Ye s. She's the key. If she can
tell us what she saw and why
she ran, we'll satisfy a court. Col-
late everything we’ve got so far
(which is practically nothing )
and file it. It won’t do us any
good without the girl. Let every-
one go. We'll have to backtrack
on Reich . .. . see what collateral
evidence we can dig up, but — "

“But it won’t help without that
goddam girl."

“ Times like this, Charley, I
hate women. For Christ’s sake,
why are they all trying to get
me married”

Image of a horse laughing.

Sar (censored) castic retort.

Sar(censored)donic reply.

(censored)

TTAVING had the last word,
Powell got to his feet and
left the picture gallery. He crossed
the overpass, descended to the
music room and entered the main
hall. He saw Reich, Jordan and
T8 talking intently alongside the
fountain. Once again he fretted
over the frightening problem of
T8. If the little peeper really was
mixed up with Reich, as Powell
had sensed at the party last week,
he might be mixed up in this
killing.

The idea of a 1st class Esper,
a pillar of the Guild, participa-
ting in murder was unthinkable;
and, if actually fact, hell to prove.
Nobody ever got anything from
a 1st without full consent. And
if T8 was (incredibly, impossibly,
100-1 against) working with
Reich, Reich himself might prove
impregnable.

Resolving on one last propa-
ganda attack before he was forced
to resort to police work, Powell
caught their eyes, and directed a
quick command to the peepers:
“Sam, Gus — jet. I want to say
something to Reich I don’t want
you to hear. I won’t peep him or
record his words. That’s a
pledge."

Jordan and T8 nodded. Reich
watched them go and then looked
at Powell. “Scare ’em off?” he
inquired.

114

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

"Warned them off. Sit down,
Reich."

They sat on the edge of the
basin, looking at each other, a
chemotropic smile on their lips.
They sat in a warm, friendly si-
lence.

"No,” Powell said after a pause,
*T’m not peeping you.”

"Didn’t think you were. But
you did in Maria’s study, eh?”
"Felt that?”

"No. Guessed. It’s what I
would have done.”

"Neither of us is very trust-
worthy, eh?”

"It’s the cowards and sore
losers who hide behind fair play.”
"What about honor?”

“We’ve got honor in us, but it’s
our own code . . . not make-
believe rules.”

Powell shook his head sadly.
"You’re two men, Reich. One of
them’s wonderful; the other’s rot-
ten. If you were all killer, it
wouldn’t be so bad. But there’s
half louse and half saint in you,
and that makes it worse.”

"I knew it was going to be bad
when you winked,” Reich grinned.
"You really scare me, Powell. I
never can tell when the punch
is coming or which way to duck.”
"Then, for God’s sake, stop
ducking and get it over with,”
Powell said. His voice burned.
"I’m going to lick you on this
one, Ben. I’m going to strangle
the lousy killer in you, because
I admire the saint. This is the

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

beginning of the end for you. You
know it. Why don’t you make it
easier for yourself?”

“And give up the best fight of
my life with the best enemy I
ever met?”

Powell shrugged angrily. They
both arose. Instinctively, their
hands met in the four-way clasp
of final farewell.

"I lost a great partner in you.
Pres,” Reich smiled.

"You lost a great man in your*
self, Ben.”

“Enemies?”

"Enemies.”

VIII

nHHE police prefect of a city of
seventeen and one-half mil-
lions cannot be tied down to an
office. He does not have a desk.
He does not have files, memo-
randa, dossiers. He has three Es-
per secretaries, memory wizards
all, who carry within their skulls
the minutiae of his business. They
accompany him within headquar-
ters like a triple index. Occasion-
ally, one of them joins him on the
field while the others remain be-
hind to act as his proxy. Sur-
rounded by his flying squad,
Powell jetted through headquar*
ters, assembling the material for
his fight.

To Commissioner Crabbe he
laid out the broad outlines once
more: "We need motive, method
and opportunity, Commissioner.

115

We’ve got opportunity, but it
won’t stand alone. Mr. Peetcy’H
never buy it. It’s got to be bol-
stered by the other two. I’m
speaking of objective evidence for
the court. Now, I’m ready to go
all out on Ben Reich and Sacra-
ment. I want to ask you a straight
question — are you willing to go
all out too?”

Crabbe, who resented Espers,
turned purple and shot up from
the ebony chair behind the ebony
desk in his ebony-and-silver of-
fice. “What the hell is that sup-
posed to mean?”

“Don’t sound for undercur-
rents, sir. I’m merely asking if
you’re tied to Reich and Sacra-
ment in any way. Will it be pos-
sible for Reich to come to you
and ask to have the rockets
cooled?”

“God damn your impudence,
Powell — ”

“Excuse me, sir, I’m just try-
ing to be realistic. I'm a career
criminologist. You’re a politician.
Politicians must have support.
Has Reich been one of your sup-
porters?”

“No, he’s not.”

“Sir: On December fourth last,
Commissioner Crabbe discussed
the Langley Case with you. Ex-
tract follows:

Powell: There's a tricky finan-
cial angle to this busi-
ness, Commissioner.
Sacrament may hold
us up with a demurrer

and attempt seizure
of the Langley assets .

Crabbe: Reich's given me his
word he won't; and I
can always depend on
Ben Reich. He backed
me up for County
Attorney.

End quote."

“Right. I thought I was reach-
ing for something." PoweM
dropped his tact and glared at
Crabbe. “What about your cam-
paign for County D. A.? Reich
backed you for that, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“And I’m supposed to believe
he hasn’t continued supporting
you?”

“Yes, you are. He backed me
then. He has not supported me
since.”

“Then I have the beacon on
the Reich murder?”

“Why do you insist that Ben
Reich killed that man? It’s ridic-
ulous. You’ve got no proof. Your
own admission.”

“Do I have the beacon on the
Reich murder?”

“You do.”

“But with strong reservations.
Make a note, boys. He's scared
to death of Reich. Make another
note. So am /.”

T O his staff, Powell said: “Now
look, you all know what a
coldblooded monster Peetcy is.
I swear he gives me nightmares
. . . screaming for facts, facts.

116

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

We’ll have to produce evidence
to convince him he ought to pros-
ecute. To do that, we’re going to
pull the Rough & Smooth on
Reich.”

“Brief us,” ^Son said.

“Go back to your Academy
training, gentlemen. Remember
that ancient device for tailing a
tough subject? Assign a clumsy
operative and a slick one to the
subject. The cluck didn’t know
the smoothie was on the job.
Neither did the subject. After
he’d shaken the rough tail, he
imagined he was clear. That made
it a cinch for the slicker. That’s
what we’re going to do to Reich.”

"Check,” said $$on.

“Go through every department.
Pull out the hundred dumbest
cops you can locate. Put ’em into
plainclothes and assign’ em to
Reich. Go up to Lab and get hold
of every crackpot robot gimmick
that’s been submitted in the last
ten years. Put all the gadgets to
work on Reich. Make it a rough
tail, but the kind he’ll have to
work to shake."

“Any specific areas?” $$on in-
quired.

“All except one. Why were they
playing ‘Sardine?’ Who suggested
the game? Beaumont’s secretaries
went on record that Reich
couldn’t be peeped because he
had a song kicking around in his
skull. What song? Who wrote it?
Where’d Reich hear it? The
guards were blasted with some

kind of Visual Purple Ionizer.
Check all research on that sort of
thing. What killed D’Courtney?
Let’s have lots of weapon re-
search. Backtrack on Reich’s re-
lations with D’Courtney. What
and how much does Reich stand
to win by D'Courtney’s death?"

“All this Rough? We’ll louse
the case, Pres!”

“Maybe. I don’t think so.
Reich’s a successful man. He’ll
imagine he’s outsmarting us every
time he outmaneuvers one of our
decoys. Keep him thinking that.
The Pantys’ll tear us apart. Play
along with it. We’re all going to
be blundering, outwitted cops,
and while Reich’s eating himself
fat on that diet — ”

“You’ll be eating Reich,” $$on
grinned. “What about the girl?"

“She’s the one exception to the
rough routine. We level with her.
I want a description and photo
sent to every police officer in the
county within one hour. On the
bottom of the stat announce that
the man who locates her will auto-
matically be jumped five grades."

“ Sir : Regulations forbid ele-
vation of more than three ranks.'*
“To hell with regulations,”
Powell snapped to his secretary.
“Five grades to the man who
finds Barbara D’Courtney. I’ve
got to get that girl.”

TN Sacrament Tower, Ben Reich
-* shoved every piezo crystal off
his desk into the startled hands

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

117

of his intimidated secretaries.

“Get the hell out of here and
take this with you,” he growled.
“For a while the office coasts
without me. Understand?”

“But the Tycho estimates . .

“You people handle it. Submit
the estimates. Brush off Salzman
on the City Contract. Remember
to have Laslow bid on those
Venus auctions. Send Pickfield
the Mandamus Writs. Sign the
shop contracts with Amalgamated
Brotherhood and don’t bother
me.”

“Mr. Reich, we’d understood
you were contemplating taking
over the D’Courtney interests now
that Craye D’ Courtney’s dead.
If you — ”

“I’m taking care of that right
now. That’s why I don’t want
to be bothered.”

He pushed them out, slammed
the door and locked it. He went
to the phone, punched BD-12,232
and the image of Jeremy Church
appeared against a background of
pawnshop debris.

“You?” Church snarled.

“Still interested in reinstate-
ment?”

Church started. “What about

it?”

“You’ve made yourself a deal.
I want a lot in return.”

“For God’s sake, Ben, any-
thing! Just ask me.”

“Unlimited service. You know
the price I’m paying. Are you
selling?'*

“I’m selling, Ben! Yes!”

“I want that blind son of a
bitch. The red-headed one.”
“Keno Quizzard? He isn’t safe,
Ben. Nobody gets anything from
Quizzard.”

“Set up a meeting. Same place.
This is like old times, eh, Jerry?
Only this time it’s going to have
a happy ending.”

FTIHE usual line of applicants
was assembled in the ante-
room of the Esper Guild Insti-
tute when Powell entered. The
hopeful hundreds, all ages, all
sexes, all classes, dreaming tha.t
they had the magic power that
could make life the fulfillment of
fantasy, unaware of the heavy
responsibility that power en-
tailed. The repugnant odor of
those wishes came to Powell from
the line: Read minds and make
a killing on the rfiarket . . .
(Guild Law forbade speculation
or gambling by peepers) , . .
Read minds and know the an-
swers to all the exam questions
. . . (That was a schoolboy, un-
aware that Esper Proctors were
hired by Examination Boards to
prevent that kind of peeper-
cheating) . . . Read minds and
know what people really think
of me . . . Read minds and know
which girls are willing . . .

At the desk, the receptionist
wearily broadcast on the broad-
est TP band: “27 you can hear
me, please go through the door

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

118

on the left marked Employees
Only."

To an assured young society
woman with a checkbook in her
hand, she was saying: “No,

madam, the Guild does not
charge for training and instruc-
tion, so spend your money on
something else. We can do noth-
ing for you.”

Deaf to the basic test of the
Guild, the woman turned away
angrily.

If you can hear me, please go
through the door on the left . . .

An elderly Negro suddenly de-
tached himself from the line,
glanced uncertainly at the re-
ceptionist. and then limped to the
proper door. Powell nodded to
the receptionist and followed the
Latent.

Inside, Jennings and White-
head were enthusiastically shak-
ing the surprised man’s hand and
patting him on the back. Powell
joined them for a moment and
added his congratulations. It was
always a happy day for the Guild
when they unearthed another
Esper.

Powell walked down the corri-
dor toward the president’s suite.
He passed a kindergarten where
thirty children and ten adults
were mixing speech and thought
in a frightful patternless stew.
Their instructor was patiently
broadcasting: “Think, class.

Words are not necessary. Remem-
ber to break the speech reflex.

Repeat the first rule after me . . ."

And the class chanted: “Elim-
inate the larynx.”

Powell winced and moved on.
The wall opposite the kindergar-
teh was covered by a gold plaque
on which was engraved the sacred
words of the Galen Pledge:

I will look upon him who shall have
taught me this art as one of my par-
ents. I will ^lare my substance with
him. and I will supply his necessities
if he be in need. I will regard his
offspnng even as my own brethren and
I will teach them this art by pr*. cpt,
by lecture and by every mob- of
teaching; and I will teach this r t to
ell others. ♦

The regimen 1 adopt shall Le for
the benefit of mankind accord ig to
my ability and judgment, and r t for
hurt or wrong. I will give no »' adly
thought to any, though it be a-’ ^d of
me, nor will I counsel such.

Whatsoever mind 1 enter, tho will
T go for the benefit of man, refrrning
from all wrongdoing and corn lion.

Whatsoever thoughts I see or lr -;r in
the mind of man which ought r ->t to
be noised abroad, 1 will keep sconce
thereon, counting such things as r.icred
secrets.

In the lecture hall, a cla^s of
3rds was earnestly weaving sim-
ple basket patterns while they
discussed current events. There
was one little overdue 2nd, a
twelve-year-old urchin who was
adding zigzag ad libs to the dull
discussion and peaking every zig
with a spoken word. The words
rhymed and were barbed com-
ments on the speakers. It was
very amusing and amazingly pre-
cocious.

119

THE

DEMOLISHED MAN

Powell halted and, below the
class threshold, asked the in-
structor: “Who’s the infant phe-
nomenon?"

“ Dennis McC allion."

“ Reported him to the Board
yet?"

“Going to send one in today."

“Well, add a recommendation
from me. Suggest he be sent di-
rectly to an alpha class. If he
keeps on like this , he may estab-
lish a new peeper rating . . . above
the 1st."

Half a dozen 2nds were taking
their exams for advanced rating
in the seminar room. They were
clustered around Molly Chindo,
the ament from Kingston Hos-
pital. chatting, smoking, and un-
easilv evading Molly’s mental
passes. Molly was still ravishing
... a blue-eyed, black-haired
nymphomaniac who was also
oligophrenic. It was a dirty trick
to introduce the sexual angle and
confuse the examinees, but a 1st
rating had to be earned the hard
way, and Molly was only one
in a series of severe tests.

A group of college-age kids was
loafing outside the president’s
suite, endlessly grousing about
the endless educational problems
of the peepers . . . the long hours
of extra work at the Institute after
their regular college lectures . . .
the rigorous code of Guild ethics
. . . the gloomy aspects of their
futures, endless work, endless de-
votion to service . . .

“Oh, brother ! If we could only
get lost from peeping, how fast
we’d shake it. Who wants to go
through life like a walking saint?
They ought to write an 11 th
Commandment : ‘ Thou shalt not
deprive any man of the right to
go to hell.’ ”

They signed off when Powell
approached. As he entered the
suite he said : “It isn’t so bad.
You get used to being admirable
after a while.” The spoken words
shamed them, and a good thing
too. They were in that stage
when youngsters resist condition-
ing.

That couldn’t be encouraged.

^T'HE president’s suite was in an
uproar. All the office doors
were open, and clerks and secre-
taries were scurrying. Old T’sung-
Hsai, the president, a portly
mandarin with shaven skull and
benign features, stood in the cen-
ter of his office and raged.

“I don’t care what the honor-
able scoundrels call themselves,”
T’sung Hsai roared. “Talk to me
about racial purity of the Guild,
will they? I’ll fill their concave
ears. Miss Prinn!”

Helen Prinn crept into T-H’s
office.

“Take a letter to these devils.
To the League of Esper Patriots.
Greetings, Powell. Your august
presence honors these humble
eyes. My threadbare office is
perfumed with the joy of your

120

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

many -jeweled visage . . . The or-
ganized campaign to cut down
Guild taxation for the education
of Espers for the benefit of man-
kind is the action of a nest of
roaches resisting the sterilization
of a filthy kitchen. New para-
graph . .

T-H wrenched himself from his
diatribe and bowed profoundly to
Powell. “And has a joyous wife
yet been found to enlarge the tree
of your celestial family?'’

" Not yet, sir.”

“Damn it, Powell, get mar-
ried 7” T-H bellowed. *7 don’t
want to be stuck with this job
forever. Paragraph, Miss Prinn:
You speak of the hardships of
taxation, of preserving the aris-
tocracy of Espers, of the unsuit-
ability of the average man for
Esper training. What the hell do
you want, Powell?"

“I want to use the grapevine,
sir.”

“ Well , don't bother me. I've
got this three-tongued League
of Lice on my back. Speak to
Jenny about it. Paragraph, Miss
Prinn: You parasitic bastards
want Esper powers turned into a
monopoly, and no taxation so
you can keep your loot like the
corrupt, unashamed leeches you
are — ”

Powell tactfully closed the door
and turned to Jenny Janies, who
was quaking in a corner.

“ Really scared. Jenny?”

Image of an eye winking and

a question mark quaking.

"When Papa T-H blows his
top, we like him to think we re
petrified. Makes him happier.”
Powell dropped the official po-
lice description and portrait of
Barbara D’ Courtney on the sec-
retary’s desk. “ Here’s something
you can do for me, Jenny.”

“ What a beautiful girl!” Jenny
exclaimed.

U 1 want this sent out on the
grapevine, marked urgent. Pass
the word that the peeper who lo-
cates Barbara D' Courtney for me
will have his Guild taxes remitted
for a year.”

“Jeepers!” Jenny sat bolt up-
right. “Can you do that, Pres?”
“ Council agreed to it.”

“ This'll make the grapevine
jump!”

*7 want it to jump. 1 want
every peeper to jump. Jenny. It
/ want anything for Xmas, /
want that girl.”

UIZZARD’S casino had been
cleared and polished during
the afternoon break . . . the only
break in the gambler’s day. The
eo and roulette tables were
brushed, the gold birdcage
sparkled, the hazard and bank
crap boards gleamed green and
white. On the cashier’s desk, cold
sovereigns — the standard com of
gambling and the underworld—
were racked in tempting storks.
Reich sat at the billiard (genuine
antique) table with Jerry Church

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

21

and Keno Quizzard, the blind
croupier. Quizzar’d was fat with
flaming red beard, dead-white
skin and malevolent dead-white
eyes.

“Your price,” Reich told
Church, “you know already. And
I’m warning you, Jerry, don’t
try to peep me. If you get into
my head you’re getting into
Demolition.”

Quizzard murmured in his
clabbered blind man’s voice: “As
bad as that? I don’t hanker for
a Demol, Reich.”

“Who does? What do you
hanker for, Keno?”

Quizzard reached back and
with sure fingers pulled a rouleau
of sovereigns off the desk and
let them cascade from one hand
to the other. “Listen to what I
hanker for.”

“Name the best price you can
figure, Keno.”

“You got a hundred Ms laying
around?”

“Hundred thousand? Right.
That’s the price.”

“For the love of . . . ” Church
popped upright and stared at
Reich. “A hundred thousand!”
“Make up your mind, Jerry,”
Reich said. “Do you want money
or reinstatement?”

“It’s almost worth — No. Am
I crazy? I’ll take reinstatement.”
“Then stop drooling.” Reich
turned to Quizzard. “I know you,
Keno. You’ve got an idea you
can find out what I want and

then shop around for higher bids.
I want you committed right now.
That’s why I let you set the
price.”

“Yeah,” Quizzard said slowly.
“I had that idea, Reich.” He
smiled and the milk-white eyes
disappeared in folds of skin. “I
still got that idea.”

“Then I’ll tell you right now
who’ll buy from you. A man
named Preston Powell. I don’t
know what he can pay.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want
it,” Quizzard spat.

“I’m still waiting to hear from
you.”

“I told you it’s a deal. I’m
committed.”

“I don’t hear you, Keno.”
“He knows, Jerry?”

“He knows,” Church muttered,
“He’s been around.”

With grudging respect, Quiz-
zard reached into his pocket and
withdrew his key chain. Reich
followed suit. The keys were
small platinum cylinders, radiant
to operate photo-electric locks,
but capable if you knew how — ■
and the underworld knew how —
of burning a tiny temporary tat-
too into the skin. Reich and Quiz-
zard stripped their arms and each
tattooed the other above the el-
bow with the characteristic de-
sign of his key. It was the under-
world’s inviolable contract. A
thief named Whittmaker had
once conceived the idea of enter-
ing into such a contract for the

*■

122

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

purpose of burglary through a
key duplicated from the tattooed
design. He failed. It was impos-
sible to duplicate the key. He also
lost an ear. Plastic surgery had
no difficulty in duplicating that.

“All right,” Reich said, “now
listen to this. First job. I want
a girl. Her name is Barbara
D’Courtney.”

“The killing?” Quizzardnodded
heavily. “I thought so.”

"Any objections?”

Quizzard jingled gold from one
hand to the other and shook his
head.

“I want the girl. She blew out
of the Beaumont House last night
and no one knows where she
landed. I want her, Keno. Before
the police get her.”

Quizzard nodded.

“She’s about twenty-five. About
five- five. Around a hundred and
twenty pounds. Really stacked.”
The fat lips smiled hungrily.
The dead -white eyes glistened.

“Yellow hair. Black eyes. Black
eyebrows. Heart-shaped face. Full
mouth and a kind of aquiline
nose . . . high bridge, sharp nos-
trils. She’s got a face with char-
acter.”

“Got the picture. Clothes?”
“She was wearing a silk dress-
ing gown last time I saw her.
Frosty white and translucent . . .
like a frozen window. No shoes.
No stockings. No hat. No jewelry.
She was off her beam enough to
tear out into the streets and dis-

appear. I want her.” Something
compelled Reich to add: "I want
her undamaged.”

“With her hauling a freight like
that? Have a heart, Reich.” Quiz-
zard licked his fat lips. “You
don’t stand a chance. She don’t
stand a chance.”

“That what a hundred Ms are
for. I stand a good chance if you
get her fast enough.”

“I may have to slush for her.”
“Then slush. Check every
bawdy house, bagnio, Blind Tiger
and Frab Joint in the city. I want
the girl. Understand?”

Quizzard nodded, still jingling
the gold. “I understand.”

Suddenly Reich reached across
the table and slashed Quizzard’s
fat hands with the edge of his
palm. The sovereigns chimed into
the air.

“And I don’t want any double-
cross,” Reich growled in a deadly
voice. “Don’t try any.”

IX

/"\NE week of attack and de-
fense, lunge and riposte, all
fought on the surface while, deep
below the agitated waters, Powell
and Augustus T8 circled like
silent sharks awaiting the onset
of the real war.

Elsworth Finney, patrol officer
now in plainclothes, believed in
the surprise attack. He waylaid
Maria Beaumont during a theater
intermission, and before her hor-

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

123

rified friends bellowed: "It was a
frame. You was in cahoots with
the killer. Y ou set up the murder.
That’s why you was playin’ that
Sardine game. Go ahead, deny it.”
The Gilt Corpse squawked and
ran. As Officer Finney set off in
hot pursuit, he was peeped deeply
and thoroughly by one of Madam
Beaumont’s friends.

T8 !<> Reich: The cop wan telling the
truth. His department believes Maria
was an accomplice.

Reich to T8: All right. We’ll throw
her to the wolves. Let the cops have
her.

Corpse there three hours later
and subjected her to a merciless
grilling in the office of the peeper
Credit Supervisor. He was un-
aware that Preston Powell was
just outside the office, chatting
with the Supervisor.

In consequence, Madam Beau-
mont was left unprotected. She
took refuge, of all places, in the
Loan Brokerage that was the
source of her enormous income.
Officer Finney located The Gilt

Powell lo staff : She got the game ont
of a book Reich gave her. Probably
purchased at Winters. They handl*
that stuff. Pass the word. Did he ask
for it specifically? Also, check Fry,
the appraiser, llow come the only
intact game in the book was ‘Sar-
dine?’ Peetcy’ll want to know. And
where’s that girl?

124

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

Dodo Wraught, patrol officer
now in plainclothes, was going to
come through on his big chance
with the suave approach. To the
manager and staff of Winters, he-
drawled: “I’m in the market for
old game books . . . the kind my
very good friend, Ben Reich,
asked for last week.”

Ttt lo Reich: I've been peeping

around. They're going to check that
book you sent Maria.

Reich to T8: Let 'em. I’m covered.
I've jot to concentrate on that girl.

The manager and staff care-
fully explained matters at great
length in response to Officer
Wraught’s suave questions. Many
clients lost patience and left the
store. One sat quietly in a corner,
too wrapt in a crystal recording
to realize he was left unattended.
Nobody knew that Charley $$on
was completely tone-deaf.

Powell lo staff: Reich apparently

found the hook accidentally. .Stumbled
over it while he was looking for a
present for the Beaumont. Pass the
word. And where's that girl?

In conference with the agency
that handled copy for the Sac-
rament Jumper (the only Nulgee
Family Air Rocket on the mar-
ket) Reich came up with a new
advertising program.

“You can’t sell transportation
on an efficiency basis,” he said.
“People won’t buy our Jumper
because it’s the best piece of ma-

chinery for the money. We can
tell ’em it’s more efficient and
cheaper than the D’Courtney
product until we’re blue in the
face. It won’t do any good. This
bankbook comparison campaign
of yours stinks.”

“Granted, Mr. Reich,” the ac-
count man said alertly. “Its scope
was out of orbit. Our synthesis
was faulty.”

“The fact is this,” Reich con-
tinued. “People always anthropo-
morphize the products they use.
They give them pet names and
treat them like family pets. A
man won’t buy a Jumper if it’s
merely efficient. He wants to love
it.”

“Check!” the account man
cried. “Your idea has a sense of
scope that dwarfs us, Mr. Reich.
Now we know who we’re rooting
for.”

“We’re going to anthropomor-
phize our Jumper,” Reich said.
“Let’s find a girl and vote her
the Sacrament Jumper Girl. We’ll
make every consumer identify his
Jumper with this girl. When he
buys one, he’s buying her.”
“Check, Mr. Reich. Check!”
“Start an immediate campaign
to locate the Jumper Girl. Get
every salesman onto it. Comb the
city. Give it lots of play in the
Pantys and papers. I want the
girl to be about twenty-five, five-
five. hundred and twenty pounds.
Lots of bounce.”

“I understand the psychology.

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

125

The Jumper Girl is a Bouncy
Girl."

“She ought to be a blonde with
dark eyes. Full mouth. Good
strong nose. I’ve had one of my
peeper artists prepare a sketch
of my idea of the Jumper Girl.
Look it over, have it reproduced
and passed out to your crew.
There’s a promotion for the man
who locates the girl 1 have in
mind.”

T8 to Reich: I’ve been peeping some
more. They’re Mending a man into
Sacrament to dig up something be-
tween you and that appraiser, £ry,

Reich to T8: Something between me
and fry l I’owell couldn’t he that
dumb, could he? Maybe I’ve been
overrating him.

Expense was no object to
Alfred Finely, who believed in the
disguises of plastic surgery.
Freshly equipped with Mongoloid
features, he took a job in Sacra-
ment's accounting department
and attempted to unearth Reich’s
financial relations with ^ry. It
never occurred to him that his
intent had been thoroughly
peeped by Sacrament’s Esper
Personnel Chief and reported up-
stairs, and that upstairs was
quietly chuckling.

Powell to staff : The idiot was looking
for bribery recorded in Sacrament’s
hooks! This should lower Reich’s
opinion of us by fifty per cent; which
makes him fifty per eent more vul-
nerable. Where’s that girl?

At the board meeting of "The
Hour” (the only round-the-
clock paper on Earth, twenty-
four editions a day) which was
actually a Sacrament house-
organ, Reich announced a new
charity to be begun at once and
publicized immediately.

“We’ll call it ‘Sanctuary,’ ” he
said. “We offer aid to the sub-
merged millions in the world in
their time of crisis. If you’ve been
evicted, bankrupted, terrorized,
swindled ... if you’re frightened
for any reason and don’t know
where to turn . . . turn to Sanc-
tuary.”

“It’s a hell of a promotion,**
the managing editor said, “but
it’ll cost like crazy. What’s it
for?”

"Public relations,” Reich
snapped. “The D’Courtney
crowd’s turned itself into the
Great White Father. It’s time
Sacrament took over the role.”

Reich left the board room, went
down to the street and located a
public phone booth. He called
Ellery West. “I want a man
placed in every Sanctuary office,
a full description and photo of
every applicant relayed to me as
they come in.”

"I’m not asking any questions,
Ben, but I wish I could peep you
on that.”

“Suspicious?” Reich snarled.

“Just curious.”

“Don’t let it kill you.”

As Reich left the booth he was

>>

accosted by a mousy man who
wore an air of inept eagerness.

“Oh, Mr. Reich. Lucky I
bumped into you. The word just
came down about Sanctuary and
I thought a human interest inter-
view with the originator of that
wonderful charity might — ”

Lucky he bumped into him!
The man was Quinn, “The
Hour’s” famous peeper reporter.
Probably tailed him down and —
Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser,
said the Tensor. Tension, appre-
hension and dissension have be-
gun.

“Was there ever a time when
you didn’t know where to turn?
Were you ever afraid of death
or murder? Were — ”

Tenser, said the Tensor.

Reich dove into a Public
Jumper and escaped.

T8 to Reich: The cop* are reall.r
after try. God knows what kind of
red herring Powell’s following, hut
it’s away from you. I think the
safely margin’s increasing.

Reich to T8: Not until I've found
that girl.

Marcus fry had left no for-
warding address and was pursued
by Prof. Elias Johnson’s “Aural
Selector” (a mechanical blood-
hound responsive to the particu-
lar aura surrounding the human
psyche). Dr. E. G. Howard’s
“Probability Prognosticator” (a
mechanical divinator). and Wm.
Elgin’s “Electrodianetiphore” (a

mechanical device defying all de-
scription).

The “Aural Selector” ended up
in Greenland; the “Probability
Prognosticator” broke down in
Kimberly; the “Electrodianeti-
phore’’ reached Shanghai, and
Marcus ^ry arrived in Moscow
where Powell located him at a
book auction conducted at break-
neck speed by a peeper auction-
eer. Powell interviewed tfry in
the foyer before a window over-
looking the remains of Red
Square.

Powell to staff : All clear. Reich

bought the book, had it appraised*
sent it as a gift. The hook wan in
hail condition and the only game
Maria could select was ‘Sardine.’
We'll never pin anything on Reich
with that. I know how Peetcy'a mind
works. Damn it, where’s that girl?

Three operatives in succession
were smitten with Miss Duffy
Wyg& and retired in disgrace to
don their uniforms once more.
When Powell finally reached her,
she was at the 4,000 Ball, escorted
and patrolled by Sam Jordan
who gave her advice and counsel.
She elected to talk.

Powell to Staff: I called Ellery West
down at Sacrament and lie supports
her story. West did complain about
gambling and Reich bought a psych-
song to stop it. He picked up that
mind-block by accident. What about
that gimmick Reich used on the
guards? Anil what about that girl?

“As far as this strike is con-

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

127

cerned,” Reich told the executives
of African Mines, Ltd., a subsidi-
ary of Sacrament, “it’s my
opinion it’s a ruse fomented by
the D’Courtney gang, and I’m
going to throw it back in their
teeth.”

“I must disagree with you, Mr.
Reich. Our attorney has been con-
ferring with the strike committee.
He’s an Esper, of course. It seems
that when the labor union ne-
gotiated the contract last year,
they failed to express their de-
mands clearly. That failure was
a result of their decision not to
employ Esper counsel for reasons
of economy ... a decision they
now regret. That is the issue. I
hardly think that the D’Courtney
Cartel is — ”

"You’re not paid to think. Just
listen to me. Tell personnel down
at the mines to stage a beauty
contest. They’re going to elect
Barbara D’Courtney the pin-up
girl of the African Mines. They’ll
send a delegation to New York
tc meet her and make the presen-
tation to her and have a hell of
a time; and they'll invite her back
for a grand tour. If she accepts,
what’ll you bet the D’Courtney
gang ends the strike?”

TR I.N P.ich: Powell’s >.1111 blunder-
ing. This time lie's after the gmimbk
yon used on D’dmirtuyV body-
guards. You’re perfectly *sfe. His
idea* are crazy.

Reich to T8: 1*11 get Qui/./ard to
make mire I’m *afe on that: l>nt
weVe not out of this until we gel

the girl. I’ve got to get her!

In response to bitter criticism.
Commissioner Crabbe revealed
that Police Laboratories had dis-
covered a new investigation tech-
nique which would break the
D’Courtney Case within 24 hours.
It involved photomagnetic anal-
ysis of the Visual Purple in the
corpse’s eyes which would yield
a picture of the murderer.
Rhodopsin researchers were being
co-opted by the police.

An anonymous person with a
clabbered voice phoned Wilson
i^maine at Central Tech and
casually attempted to purchase
Dr. %maine’s interest in the
Drake Estate for a small sum.
The clabbered voice sounded too
crafty to %maine (who had never
even heard of the Drake Estate)
and he called Central’s Law
School. He was informed that the
Drake Estate on Callisto, valued
at half a million, had just been
reopened for litigation. Dr.
maine was a probable legatee.
The psychologist jetted for Cal-
listo one hour later.

Powell lo staff: Indicating !4 maine
might be our man on the Hhodopsin
angle, lie’s the only Visual Physiolo-
gist to disappear after Crabbe’- an-
nouncement. Pais the word to 8ton
to tail P'ini l<> Calli'M and handle it.
What about that girl?

Meanwhile, the slick side of the
Rough & Smooth was quietly in
operation. As The Gilt Corpse

128

GAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION

was entertaining Reich with her
squawking flight, a bright young
attorney from Sacrament’s legal
department was deftly decoyed
to Paris and held there anony-
mously on a valid, if antiquated,
vice charge. An astonishing
double of that gentleman went to
work for him.

T8 to Reich : Check your legal de-
partment. I can’t. peep what’s going
on, lull something’s fishy. This is
dangerous.

Reich brought in an Esper Ef-
ficiency Expert 1, ostensibly for
a general checkup, and located
the substitution. Then he called
the man with the clabbered voice
who had multifarious connec-
tion s. A plaintiff suddenly ap-
peared and sued the bright young
attorney for barratry. That ended
the substitute’s connection with
Sacrament painlessly and le-
gitimately.

Powell lo staff: We’re being licked.
Reich’s slamming every door in our
face . . . Rough & Smooth. Find
out who’s doiiig ihc legwork for him,
and find lh.nl girl.

While Alfred Finely was ca-
vorting around Sacrament with
his brand-new Mongolian face,
one of Sacrament’s young scien-
tists. who had been badly hurt
in r> laboratory explosion, appar-
ently left the hospital a week
early and reported back for duty.
He was heavily bandaged, but

eager for work. It was the old
Sacrament spirit.

T8 lo Reich: I’ve finally figured it.
Powell isn’t dumb. He’s running his
investigation on two levels. Don’t
pay any attention lo the one that
shows. Watch out for the one under-
neath. I’ve peeped something about
a hospital. Check il.

Reich checked. It tool: three
days and then he called the man
with the clabbered voice. Sacra-
ment v/as burgled of $50,000 in
laboratory platinum and the Re-
stricted Room was destroyed in
the process. The newly returned
scientist was unmasked as an im-
postor, accused of complicity in
the crime and handed over to the
police.

Powell lo staff: Which means we’ll
never prove Reich got that ll’iodop-
siu stuff from his own lab. Flow in
Cod’s name did he unslick our trick?
Can’t we do anything on any level?
Where's that girl?

While Reich was laughing at
the ludicrous search for Marcus
try, his top brass was greeting the
Continental Tax Examiner, an
Esper 2, who had arrived for a
long delayed check on Sacra-
ment’s books. This despite the
fact that Reich owned three Con-
tinental Senators. One of the new
additions to the Examiner’s squad
was a peeper ghostwriter who
prepared her chief’s reports. She
was an expert in official work . . «
mainly police work.

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

129

TS to Reich: I’m auspicious of lhn»
Examiner's squad. Don't liiUe any
chances.

Reich smiled grimly and turned
his company books over to the
squad. Then he sent Hassop, his
Code Chief, to Ampro on that
promised vacation. Hassop oblig-
ingly carried a small spool of
exposed film with his regular
photographic equipment. That
spool was Sacrament’s secret
books, cased in a thermite seal
which would destroy all records
unless it was opened properly.
The only other copy was in
Reich’s invulnerable temporal -
phase safe at home.

Powell to !»lnff: Ami that juit about
cuds everything for us. Have Hassop
double-tailed Rough & Smooth. He’s
probably got vital evidence on him,
so Reich’s got him beautifully pro-
tected. Damn it, we’re licked. I say
it. Mr. Pectcy says it. You know it.
Where is that missing girl?

¥ IKE an anatomical chart of
* ’ the blood system, colored red
for the arterial and blue for the
venous, the two networks of the
underworld and overworld grape-
vines spread. From Guild head-
quarters the word passed to in-
structors and students, to their
families, friends, casual acquaint-
ances. From Quizzard’s Casino
the word was passed from
croupier to gamblers, confidence
men, heavy racketeers, hustlers,
steerers and suckers.

On Friday morning, Fred Deal,

Esper 3, awoke, bathed, break-
fasted and departed to his regular
job. He was chief guard on the
floor of the Mars Exchange Bnnk
in Maiden Lane. Stopping to buy
a new commutation ticket at the
Pneumatique, he passed the time
with Biddy MacNaughton, Esper
3, on duty at the Information
Desk. Biddy passed Fred the
word about Barbara D’ Courtney
and Fred memorized the TP pic-
ture she flashed him. It was a
picture framed in dollar signs.

On Friday morning, Lonzo
(Snim) Whittmaker was awak-
ened by his landlady, Chooka
Frood, with a loud scream for
back rent.

“You already makin’ a frabby
fortune with ’at loopy yella-head
girl you pick up,” Snim com-
plained. “You runnin’ a golmine
withat spook stuff downinna
basement. Whaddya want from
me?”

Chooka Frood pointed out to
Snim that the yellow-headed girl
was not crazy. She was a genuine
medium. Chooka did not run
rackets; she was a legitimate for-
tuneteller. If Snim did not come
through with six weeks roof and
rolls, Chooka would be able to
tell his fortune without any
trouble at all. Snim would be
out on the asphalt.

Snim arose. Already dressed,
he descended into the city to get
himself crowned. He inspected
the charity stands he had set up

130

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

on various comers . . . small steel
coffers with slots in the top and
signs on the side that read: end
starvation on calusto. This was
Snim’s private charity and not
very profitable. The coffers were
empty.

It was too early to run up
to Quizzard’s and work the sob
on the more prosperous clients,
and anyway there had been that
tattoo difficulty with Keno. Snim
touched his new ear delicately
and tried to sneak a ride uptown
on the Pneumatique. He was
thrown out by the peeper change
clerk and walked. It was a long
haul to Jerry Church’s hockshop,
but Snim had a gold and pearl
pocket-pianino up there and he
was hoping to cadge Church into
advancing another sovereign on
It He had to get himself crowned
today.

Church was absent on business
and the clerk could do nothing
for Snim. Snim told the sob to
the clerk about hi£ landlady
crowning herself every day with
the new spook-shill she was using
in her palm -racket and still trying
to milk him when she, was rolling.
The clerk would not weep even
for the price of coffee. Snim de-
parted.

When Jerry Church returned
to the hockshop for a brief time-
out in his wild quest for Reich,
the clerk reported Snim’s visit
and conversation. What the clerk
did not report, Church peeped.

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

He tottered to the phone and
called Reich. Reich could not be
located. Church called Keno
Quizzard.

Meanwhile, Snim was growing
a little desperate. He trudged
downtown to Maiden Lane and
cased the banks in that pleasant
esplanade around Bomb Inlet. He
was not too bright and made the
mistake of selecting the Mars
Exchange for a con. It looked
dowdy and provincial. Snim had
not learned that it is only the
powerful and efficient institutions
that can afford to look second-
rate.

Snim entered the bank, crossed
the crowded main floor to the row
of desks opposite the tellers*
cages, and stole a handful of de-
posit slips and a pen. As Snim
left the bank, Fred Deal glanced
at him once, motioned wearily to
his staff, then pointed to Snim
who was disappearing through the
front door.

“He’s getting ready to pull the
‘ Adjustment ' routine. Let him go
ahead with it. We'll pick him up
after he's got the money and get
a conviction."

Unaware of this, Snim lurked
outside the bank, watching the
tellers’ cages closely. A citizen
was making a big withdrawal at
Cage Z. This was the fish. Snim
hastily removed his jacket, rolled
up his sleeves and tucked the pen
in his ear. As the fish came out
of the bank, counting his money,

131

Snim slipped behind him, darted
up and tapped the man's
shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said
briskly. “I’m from Cage Z. I’m
afraid our teller made a mistake
and shortcounted you. Will you
come back for the adjustment,
please?”

Snim waved his sheaf of slips,
■swept the money from the fish’s
fins and turned to enter the bank.
As the surprised citizen followed
him, Snim slipped into the crowd
and headed for the side exit. He
would be out and away before
the fish realized he’d been skinned.

It was at this moment that a
rough hand grasped Snim’s neck.
He was swung around face to face
with a bank guard. In one chaotic
instant, Snim contemplated fight,
flight, bribery, pleas, Kingston
Hospital, the bitch Chooka Frood
and her yellow-headed ghost girl,
his pocket-pianino and a man
named Strenn who owned it.
Then he collapsed and wept.

The guard flung him to another
uniform and shouted: “Take him,
boys. I’ve just made myself a
mint!”

“Is there a reward for this little
guy, Fred?”

"Not for him. For what's in his
head. I’ve got to call the Guild.”

At nearly the same moment
late Friday afternoon, Ben Reich
and Preston Powell received the
identical information:

“fjirl answering to the description
of Ihirbnra D’Coiirtiicy can be found
in Chooka Frood** Fortune Act, 99
UaNlion West Side.*’

X

F AMOUS last bulwark in the
Siege of New York, Bastion
West Side was a war memorial.
Its ten tom acres were to have
been maintained in perpetuity as
a denunciation of the insanity
that produced the final war. But
the final war, as usual, proved to
be the next-to-the final. Number
99 was an evicerated ceramics
plant. A succession of blazing ex-
plosions had burst among the
stock of thousands of chemical
glazes, fused them, and splashed
them into a wild splotchy repro-
duction of a Lunar crater. This
was the Rainbow House of
Chooka Frood.

The top floors had been patched
and subdivided into a warren of
cells so complicated and con-
fused that a man could slip from
cell to cell while the floors were
being searched, and easily evade
the most painstaking cordon.
This unusual complexity netted
Chooka large profits each year.

The lower floors were given
over to Chooka’s famous Frab
Joint, where vice was served to
order, either grossly or subtly.

But the cellar of Chooka
Frood’s house was the phenome-
non that had inspired her most
lucrative industry. It was worth

132

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

the hazardous trip to Bastion
West Side. You threaded your
way through twisting streets un-
til you reached the streak of
jagged orange that pointed to the
door of Chooka’s Rainbow House.
At the door you were met by an
obscenely solemn person in XXth
Century formal costume who
asked: “Frab or Fortune?" You
replied “Fortune" and were con-
ducted to a sepulchral door where
you paid a gigantic fee and were
handed a phosphor candle. Hold-
ing the candle aloft, you walked
down a deep stone staircase.

Around the rim of the cellar,
on stone benches, sat the other
future-seekers, each holding his
phosphor caudle. You joined the
throbbing, burning silence and
sat quietly, your candle joining
the constellation of stars, until at
last there came the high chime of
a silver bell.

Clothed in a cascade of flaming
music, Chooka Frood entered the
cellar and paced to the center of
the floor.

“And there, of course, the illu-
sion ends,” Powell said to himse lf.
He stared at Chooka’s notato
noce, flat eyes. “Maybe she can
act.” he muttered hopef'Ulv.

Chooka stopped in the nvddle
oi the floor, much like a

frowzv Medusa, then lifted her
arm'*- in what v ir ‘.ended lor a
swe - ‘ ■’g mystic gvlure.

: can't.” ' r * y U d-— 1 -- 1 .

“I am come here to you,”

Chooka intoned in a hoarse
voice, “to help you look into the
deeps of your hearts. Look down
into your hearts, you which are
looking for revenge on a man
named Zerlan from Mars . . .
for the love of a red -eyed woman
of Callisto ... for the wealth of
that stingy uncle in Paris

“Why, damn me! The woman’s
a peeper!"

Chooka stiffened. Her mouth
hung open.

“You're receiving me, * aren’t
you, Chooka Frood?"

The answer came in frightened
fragments. It was obvious that
Chooka Frood’s natural ability
had never been trained. “Who?
Which is . . . you?”

As carefully as if he were com-
municating with an infant 3rd,
Powell soelled it out: “ Name —
Preston Powell. Occupation — Po-
lice Prefect. Intent — to question
a girl named Barbara D' Courtney,
I have heard she’s participating
in your act.” Powell transmitted
a picture of the girl.

It was pathetic the way Chooka
tried to block. “Get . . . out! Out
of here!”

“ Why haven’t you come to the
Gu : t^° Why aren't you in contact
with vovr own o a oole?"

“Goddam peeper. Get out.”

“You're a goddam peeper, too.
Why l -v'en’f you ht us train you?
Whr>* ' : -'d of life this for vou?

' a 9/ work waiting for
you, Cl. j oka"

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

133

"Real money?"

Powell repressed the wave of
exasperation that rose up in him.
It was not exasperation with
Chooka. It was anger at the re-
lentless force of progress and evo-
lution that insisted on endowing
man with increased powers with-
out removing the vestigial vices
that prevented him from using
them.

"We' 11 talk about that later,
Chooka. Where's the girl?”

“ There is no girl."

"Peep the customers with me.
That old goat obsessed with the
red-eyed woman ..." Powell ex-
plored gently. “ He's been here
before. He's waiting for Barbara
D 'Courtney to come in. You dress
her in sequins. You bring her on
after about half an hour. He likes
her looks. She does some kind of
trance routine to music. Her dress
is slit open to the thigh and he
likes that."

"He's crazy. I never — ”

"And the woman who was
loused by a man named Zerlan?
She's seen the girl often, believes
in her. Where's the girl, Chooka ?"
"No!"

"I see. Upstairs. Where up-
stairs, Chooka? You can’t mis-
direct a 1 st. Maybe if you'd let
the Guild train you — fourth
room on the left of the angle
turn. That’s a complicated laby-
rinth you've got up there, Chooka.
Let’s have it once again to make
sure . .

Helpless and mortified. Chooka
suddenly shrieked: “Get out of
here, you lousy cop!”

“Excuse it, please,” said Powell.
“I’m on my way.”

He arose and left the room.

npHAT entire investigation oc-
curred within the second it
took Reich to step from the
eighteenth to the nineteenth step
on his way down to Chooka
Frood’s rainbow cellar. Reich
heard Chooka’s" furious screech
and Powell's reply. He turned and
shot up the stairs to the main
floor.

As he jostled past the door at-
tendant, he thrust a sovereign
into the man’s hand and hissed:
“I wasn’t here. Understand?”
'“No one is ever here, sir.”

He made a quick circuit of the
Frab rooms. Tension, apprehen-
sion and dissension have begun.
He brushed by the girls and
other creatures who solicited him,
then locked himself into the
phone booth and punched BD-
12.232. Church’s anxious face ap-
peared on the screen.

“We’re in a jam. Powell’s here.”
“Oh, my God!”

“Where in hell is Quizzard?”
“I thought he’d be there."
“Powell was in the cellar, peep-
ing Chooka. You can bet Quiz-
zard wasn’t there. Where in hell
is he?”

“I don’t know, Ben. He went
down with his wife and — ”

134

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

"Powell must have located the
girl. I’ve got maybe five minutes
to beat him to her. Quizzard was
supposed to do that for me."

“He must be upstairs in the
coop.”

“Is there a quick way to get
up to the coop? A shortcut I
can use to beat Powell to her?”
“If Powell peeped Chooka, he
peeped the shortcut.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he
was concentrating on the girl. It’s
a chance I’ll have to take.”

“Behind the main stairs.
There’s a marble bas-relief. Turn
the woman’s head to the right.
The bodies separate and there’s
a door to a vertical pneumatique.”
Reich hung up, left the booth,
found the bas-relief, twisted the
woman’s head savagely and
watched the bodies swing apart.
A steel door appeared. He yanked
the door open and stepped into
the open shaft. Instantly a metal
plate jolted up against his soles
and with a hiss of air pressure
he was lofted to the top floor. A
magnetic catch held the plate
while he opened the shaft door
and stepped out of the pneu-
matique.

He found himself in a corridor
that slanted up at an angle of
thirty degrees and leaned to the
left. It was floored with canvas.
The ceiling glowed at intervals
with small flickering globes of
radon. The walls were lined with
doors, none of them numbered.

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

“Quizzard!” Reich shouted.

, There was no answer.

Reich ran halfway up the cor-
ridor, and then at a venture tried
a door. It opened to a narrow
cubby entirely filled with an oval
bed. Reich crawled across the
foam mattress to a door on the
opposite side, thrust it open and
fell through. He found himself on
a landing. A flight of steps led
down to a round anteroom
rimmed with doors.

“Quizzard!” he shouted again.

There was a muffled reply.
Reich spun on his heels, ran to
a door and pulled it open. A
woman with eyes dyed red by
plastic surgery was standing just
inside and Reich blundered
against her. She burst into un-
accountable laughter. Reich
backed away, reached for the
door, apparently missed it and
seized the knob of another, for
he did not come out into the cir-
cular foyer.

He found himself staring up
into the angry face of Chooka
Frood.

“What the hell are you doing
in my room?” Chooka screamed.

Reich shot to his feet. “Where
is she?”

“Get out of here, Ben Reich.”

“Barbara D’ Courtney — where
is she?”

Chooka turned her head and
yelled: “Magda!”

The red-eyed woman came into
the room. She held a TP scram-

135

bier in her hand and she was still
laughing; but the gun was trained
on his skull.

“I want the girl, Chooka, be-
fore Powell gets her."

“Get him out of here, Magda!”
Reich dubbed the woman
across the eyes with the back of
his hand. She fell backward,
dropping the gun, and into a
corner, still laughing, Reich ig-
nored her. He picked up the
scrambler and aimed it at
Chooka’s temple.

“Where’s the girl?”

“You go to hell!”

Reich pulled the trigger back
into first notch. The radiation
charged Chooka's nervous sys-
tem with a low induction current.
She stiffened and began to trem-
ble, but she still shook her head.
Reich yanked the trigger back
to second notch. Chooka’s body
was thrown into a break-bone
ague.

“Third notch is death notch,"
he growled. “Where is she?”

Chooka was almost completely
paralyzed. “Through . . . door,"
she croaked. “Fourth room . . .
left . . . after turn.”

Reich dropped her and let her
fall in a heap alongside the laugh-
ing red-eyed woman. He ran out
of the bedroom, came to a cork-
screwed ramp. He mounted it.
took a sharp turn, stopped at the
fourth room on the left. He thrust
open the door and entered. There
was an empty bed, a single

dresser, an empty closet, a single
chair.

“Gulled!” he snarled.

The bed showed no sign of use.
Neither did the closet. He yanked
at a dresser drawer that was
partly open. It contained a frost
white silk gown and a stained
steel object that looked like a
malignant flower. It was the mur-
der weapon.

“My God!” Reich breathed.

He snatched up the gun and
inspected it. Its chambers . still
contained the cartridges without
slugs. The one that had blown
the top of Craye D’Courtney's
head out was still in place under
the hammer.

“It isn’t Demolition yet." Reich
muttered. “Not by a damned
sight.” He folded up the revolver
and thrust it into his pocket. At
that moment he heard a dis-
tant clabbered laugh. Quizzard’s
laugh.

Reich stepped quickly to the
twisted ramp and followed the
sound of the laughter to a plush
door hung on brass hinges and
set deep in the wall. Gripping the
scrambler at the alert with the
trigger set for Death Notch,
Reich pulled open the door.

He was in a small round room,
walled and ceilinged in midnight
velvet. The floor was a one-way
mirror that gave a clear uninter-
rupted view of a boudoir on the
floor below. It was Chooka’s
Voyeur Chamber.

136

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

chair with the girl in his arms,
his blind eyes staring, Reich
came to the appalled conclusion
that the woman’s fall was no ac-
cident; for Quizzard suddenly
dropped. The girl tumbled out
of his arms and fell into the chair.

There was no doubt that Pow-
ell had accomplished this on a
TP level, and for the first time
in their war Reich was physically
afraid. Again he aimed the scram-
bler, this time at Powell’s head
as the peeper walked to the chair.

Powell said, “Are you all right,
Miss D’Courtney?” When the girl
failed to answer, he bent down
and stared into her blank, placid
face. He touched her arm and

In the boudoir, Quizzard sat in
a deep chair, his blind eyes blaz-
ing. The D’Courtney girl was
perched on his lap, wearing an
astonishing slit gown of sequins,
evidently the costume the girl
wore for Chooka’s fortune act.
She sat quietly, her yellow hair
smooth, her deep dark eyes star-
ing placidly into space.

"How'does she look?” Quizzard
asked a small faded woman who
stood across the boudoir from
him, with her back against the
wall and an incredible expression
of agony on her face. It was
Quizzard’s wife.

“Lost,” his wife answered in a
faint voice. “Dead.”

Quizzard fumbled for the girl’s
head and drew it down. He kissed
her passive mouth.

"She doesn’t look dead now,
does she?”

"She doesn’t know what’s hap-
pening.”

"She knows,” Quizzard shouted.
“She isn’t that far gone. If I only
had my eyes!”

"I’m your eyes, Keno.”

"Then look for me. Tell me!”
Reich cursed and aimed the
scrambler at Quizzard’s head.
Then Powell entered the boudoir.
The woman saw him at once.
“Run, Keno! Run!”

She thrust herself from the wall
and darted toward Powell, her
hands clawing for his eyes. Then
she fell prone and never moved.
As Quizzard surged up from the

HE DEMOLISHED MAN

137

repeated: “Are you all right? Do
you need help?”

At the word “help” the girl
whipped upright in the chair in
a listening attitude. Then she
thrust out her legs and leaped
from the chair. She ran past Pow-
ell in a straight line, stopped
abruptly and reached out as
though grasping a doorknob. She
thrust an imaginary door open
and burst forward, yellow hair
flying, dark eyes wide with alarm
... a lightning flash of wild
beauty.

“Father!” she screamed. “For
God’s sake! Father!”

She ran forward, stopped short
and backed away. She darted to
the left, stopped and struggled
with imaginary arms that held
her. She fought and screamed, her
eyes still fixed, then stiffened and
clapped her hands to her ears as
though a violent sound had
pierced them. She fell forward to
her knees and crawled.. Then she
stopped, snatched at something
on the floor, and remained
crouched on her knees.

With sickening certainty. Reich
knew she had relived the death
of her father. She had relived it
for Powell. And if he had peeped
her ...

Powell went to the girl and
raised her from the floor. She
arose as gracefully as a dancer,
as serenely as a somnambulist.
The peeper put his arm around
her and took her to the door.

Reich followed him all the way
with the muzzle of the scrambler,
waiting for the best shooting
angle. He was invisible. He, could
win safety with a shot. Powell
opened the door, then suddenly
looked up.

“Go ahead,” Powell called.
“One shot for the both of us.
Go ahead!” He stared up at the
invisible Reich, waiting, hating,
daring.

Reich turned his face away
from the man who could not see
him.

Powell took the docile girl
through the door and closed it
quietly behind him, and Reich
knew he had permitted safety to
slip through his fingers.

XI

C ONCEIVE of a camera with
a lens distorted so that it
can only photograph over and
over the scene that twisted it into
shock. Conceive of a bit of record-
ing crystal, traumatically warped
so that it can only hear the same
terrifying phrase.

“She’s in hysterical recall,” Dr.
Johnny Jeems of Kingston Hos-
pital explained to Powell and
Mary Noyes in the living room of
Powell’s house. “She responds to
the key word ‘help’ and relives
one experience ...”

“The death of her father,” Pow-
ell said.

“Oh? I see. Outside of that

138

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

« . . catatonia.”

"Permanent?” Mary Noyes
asked.

Jeems looked surprised and in-
dignant. He was one of the
brighter young men of Kingston
Hospital and fanatically devoted
to his work. “In this day and age?
Nothing is permanent except
death, Miss Noyes, and up at
Kingston we've started working
on that. Investigating death from
the nosogenic point of view, we’ve
actually — ”

"Later, Johnny,” Powell inter-
rupted. “No lectures tonight. Can
I peep her?”

Jeems considered. "No reason
why not. I gave her the Deja
Eprouve Series for catatonia.
That shouldn’t get in the way.”
"What’s the Deja Eprouve
Series?” Mary asked.

“A great new treatment,” Jeems
said excitedly. “Patient goes into
catatonia. It’s flight from reality.
The conscious mind wishes it had
never been born. It attempts to
revert back to the foetal stage.
You understand?”

Mary nodded. “So far.”

“We use Deja Eprouve. That’s
psychiatric French for ‘some-
thing already experienced, al-
ready tried.’ Many patients, on
the basis of the wish, feel that an
act of experience in which they
never engaged has happened. We
synthesize this Deja Eprouve for
the patient. We send the con-
scious mind back to the womb

and let it pretend it’s being born
all over again. We make the cata-
tonic wish come true. Got that?’*
“Got it.”

“On the surface, consciously,
the patient goes through devel-
opment all over again at an ac-
celerated rate . . . infancy,

childhood, adolescence and final-
ly maturity.”

"You mean Barbara D’Court-
ney is going to be a baby, learn
to speak, walk?”

“Right. Takes about three
weeks. By the time she catches
up with herself, she’ll be ready to
accept the reality she’s trying to
escape. She’ll have grown up
to it, so to speak. This is only on
the conscious level. Below that,
she won’t be touched. You can
peep her all you like. Only
trouble is she must be pretty
scared down there. You’ll have
trouble getting what you want.
Of course, that’s your specialty.
You’ll know what to do.”

Jeems stood up abruptly. “Got
to get back to the shop.” He made
for the front door. “Always de-
lighted to be called in by peepers.
I can’t understand the recent hos-
tility toward you people . . .
He was gone.

“That was a significant part-
ing note.”

“What'd he mean, Pres?”

" Peepers haven't been doing
business with enough normals ,
We keep to ourselves too much.
That starts economic pressures

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

39

and prejudices. Have to bring
that up in Council later. Bring
Barbara down, Mary.”

Mary brought the girl down-
stairs and seated her on the low
severe dais. (Powell had recently
reconverted his decor to XXth
Century Swedish.) Barbara sat
like a calm statue. Mary had
dressed her in blue leotards and
combed her blonde hair back,
tying it into a fox -tail with a blue
ribbon.

“ Lovely outside; mangled in-
side. Damn Reich!”

“ What about him?”

“/ was so mad at Chooka
F rood's coop, I handed it to that
red slug Quizzard and hi s wife.”
“ What did you do to Quiz-
zard P”

“ Basic neuro-shock. Come up
to the Lab sometime and we'll
show you. If you make 1st, we'll
teach you. It’s like the scrambler,
but psychogenic.”

“ Fatal ?”

“ Forgotten the Pledge? Of
course not.”

“And you peeped Reich through
the floor? How?”

“TP reflection. The Voyeur
Chamber wasn’t wired for sound.
It had open acoustical ducts.
Reich's mistake. He was trans-
mitting down the channel and I
swear I was hoping he had the
gut' to shoot. I was going to blast
hit with a Basic that would have
ma r ' y case history.”

“ Why didn't he shoot?”

“He had every reason to kill
us. He thought he was safe, didn’t
know about the Basic, even
though Quizzard's Decline & Fall
jolted him. But he couldn't.”

“Afraid?”

“Reich's no coward. He just
couldn't. Unconscious inhibition
of some sort, but I don’t know
what. Maybe next time it’ll be
different. That's why I’m keeping
Barbara D'Courtney in my
house. T his is one place where
she'll be safe.”

“She’ll be safe in Kingston
Hospital.”

“But not quiet enough for the
work I’ve got to do.”

“She's got the detailed picture
of the murder locked up in her
hysteria. When I've got it, I've
got Reich.”

Mary arose. “Exit Mary
Noyes.”

“Sit down, peeper! Why d'you
think I called you?”

“No, you don’t Mr. Powell.”
Mary burst into laughter. “So
that's it. You want me for a chap-
erone. Victorian word, isn’t? So
are you, Pres. Positively ata-
vistic.”

“ I brand that as a lie. I'm
known as the most progressive — "

“And what’s that image?
Knights of the Round Table. Sir
Galahad Powell. And there's
something underneath that. I — ”
Suddenly she stopped laughing
and turned pale.

140

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

"What’d you dig?"

“ Forget it, Pres. And don't
peep me for it. It you can't reach
it yourself, you'd better not get
it second-hand. Especially from
me."

He looked at her curiously for
a moment. “ All right, Mary. Then
we'd better go to work." To Bar-
bara D’Courtney he said: “Help,
Barbara.”

Instantly she whipped upright
on the dais in a listening atti-
tude, and he probed delicately
. . . Sensation of bedclothes . . .
Voice calling dimly . . . " Whose
voice, Barbara?" Deep in the
preconscious she answered : “Who
is that?” “A friend, Barbara .”
“There’s no one. No one. I’m
alone.” And she was alone, racing
down a corridor to thrust a door
open and burst into an orchid
room to see — "What, Barbara?"
“A man. Two men.” “Who?" “Go
away. Please go away. I don’t
like voices. There’s a voice
screaming in my ears ...”

She was screaming while terror
made her dodge from a dim figure
that clutched at her to keep her
from her father. “ What is your
father doing, Barbara ?” “He —
no. you don’t belong here. There’s
only the three of us. Father and
me and — ” A flash of the face.
“ Look again, Barbara. Sleek
head. Wide eyea. Small straight
nose. Small sensitive mouth. Like
a scar. Is that the man? Look at
the picture. Is that the man?"

“Yes. Yes.” And then all was
gone.

She was kneeling again, placid,
doll-like.

Powell wiped perspiration from
his face and took the girl back
to the dais. Hysteria cushioned
the emotional impact for her. He
was reliving her terror, naked
and unprotected.

"It was Ben Reich, Mary. Did
you get the picture, too?"

“ Couldn't stay in long enough,
Pres. Had to run for cover."

"It was Reich, all right. Only
question is, how in hell did he
kill her father? What did he use?
Why didn’t old D' Courtney put
up a fight to defend himself?
Have to try again. I hate to do
this to her ...”

“/ hate you to do this to your-
self, Pres."

“ Have to." He took a deep
breath and said: “Help. Bar-
bara.”

Again she whipped upright on
the dais in a listening attitude.

“ Not so fast. There’s plenty of
time." “You again?” “ Remember
me, Barbara?" “No, I don’t know
you. Get out.” “But I’m part of
you, Barbara. We're running
down the corridor together. See?
We’re opening the door together.
It’s so much easier together. We
help each other.” “We?” “Fes,
Barbara, you and I. When you
talk to yourself when you’re
alone, you talk to me. That’s who
I am.” “Look at father! For pity’s

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

141

sake, help me !*'

She knelt again, placid, doll-
like.

Powell felt a hand under his
arm and realized he was not sup-
posed to be kneeling too. The
body before him slowly disap-
peared, the orchid room disap-
peared; and Mary Noyes was
straining to raise him.

“You first this time,” she said
grimly. He shook his head. “ All
right, Sir Galahad. Cool a while."

Mary raised the girl and led
her to the dais. Then she re-
turned to Powell. " Ready for help
now, or don't you think it’s
manly?”

“The word is virile. Don't waste
your time trying to help me up.
I need brain power ”

“W hat'd you peep?”

“D ’ Courtney wanted to be mur-
dered.”

“ The hell you say!”

“ The hell I don’t. I’ve got to
see D' Courtney's M.D. first thing
in the morning.”

S AM @kins, E.M.D. 1, received
$1,000 per hour of analysis,
two million dollars per year, but
Sam was efficiently killing him-
self with charity work. He was
one of the burning lights of the
Guild’s long-range education plan,
and leader of the Environment
Clique which believed that tele-
pathic ability was not a congen-
ital characteristic, but a latent
quality which could be developed

by suitable training.

He invited everyone in the low
income brackets to bring their
problems to him, and while he
was ironing them out he was care-
fully attempting to foster te-
lepathy in his patients. So far,
the results had been the discovery
of 2% Latent Espers, which was
under the average of the Guild
Institute interviews, but Sam was
undiscouraged.

Powell found him charging
through the garden, vigorously
destroying flowers under the im-
pression that he was cultivating.
He was snorting and shouting
at plants and patients alike.

“Damn it, don't you tell me
that’s a zinnia. Don’t I know a
weed when I ^ee it? Hand me
the rake, Bernard.”

A small man in black handed
him the rake and said : “My name
is Walter, Dr. @kins.”

@kins grunted, tearing out a
clump of green that was neither
weed nor zinnia, but marigold.
“Why in hell are you running
away from Bernard? Who taught
you that semantic loophole?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me,
Dr. @kins,” Walter replied.

“You remind me of Alice
Bright. Where is that make-
believe slut anyway?”

A pretty red-headed girl jostled
through the crowd and smirked;
“Here I am, Dr. @kins.”

“Well, don’t preen yourself be-
cause 1 called you a name.” @kins

v>'

142

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

frowned at her and continued on
the TP level: “ 'I'm a woman,’
you tell yourself. “Therefore, men
desire me. It's enough to know
that thousands of men could have
me if I'd let them. That makes
me real.' Well, it doesn't. It's no
substiti^e for living — nothing is.”
@kins waited impatiently for a
response, but the girl merely pos-
tured before him. Finally he burst
out: “ Didn't any of you hear
what I told her?”

“ I did. teacher.”

“Oh, you. Hi, Pres. How about
this crowd of dead heads? Too
lazy to peep a simple question.”
“ Lay off that plant, Sam. It's
a tomato

“It's a weed.”

“Sam, you busted botany our
first year. I’m telling you it's
tomato .” Powell turned to the pa-
tients. “What kind of plant is
that?”

“Tomato.” they said.

Sam pulled it up. “I’m allergic
to tomatoes.” he announced with
an air of having had the final
word. “ What's on your mind,
Pres?”

“ When you get a chance I'd
like to ask a couple of questions
about a dead patient.”

“Who?”

“D’ Courtney. Our Mr. Peetcy
is very curious about him”

“Oh. Give me another half hour
with my flock. Say, young Cher-
vil's here, waiting to see me too.
Anything wrong in the family?

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

He seemed real upset. Go talk to
him.”

Powell let out a blast: “ CHER-
VIL /”

One of (©kins’ flock flinched and
Sam turned on the man excitedly.
“You heard that, didn’t you,
Hopkins?”

“No, sir. I didn't hear nothing.*
"Then why did you jump?”

“A bug bit me.”

"It did not!” fS'kins roared.
"There are no bugs in my garden.
You heard Mr. Powell.”

Young Gaily Chervil answered
from the house and Powell left
the garden. @kins yelled after
him: “Powell, you’ve discovered
the answer. We’ve got to yell loud
enough for these lazybones.” And
then he began a frightful racket:
" YOU CAN ALL HEAR ME.
DON'T SAY YOU CAN'T.”
Powell found young Gaily pac-
ing distractedly before the F ^nch
windows facing the garden. He
looked up gloomily. “Hi, Mr.
Powell.”

“Pip, Gaily.”

“Pop, Mr. Powell. Also Bim,
Bam and ( censored ).”

From the garden @kins com-
plained: “Stop broaden mg.

You're jamming the band. T ~’lk.”
Powell grinned. “How you iixed
for words. Gaily?”

“They fail me.”

“Trouble?”

Gaily nodded. “You belie ' Dr.
(©kins?”

“Not about flowers.”

143

"I mean his idea about every-
body being an Esper.”

“We’d all like to believe him.
He hasn’t convinced anybody
yet.”

“He’s got to be right,” Gaily
muttered. “That girl I met at the
Beaumont party the night
D’Courtney was killed—”

“Duffy Wyg&? What about
her?”

Gaily burst out: “I’m going to
marry her.”

“Oh? She isn’t a peeper.”

“Dr. @kins says everybody is.”

“Moral support, eh?”

“Are you against it, Mr. Pow-
ell?”

“The Guild is, Gaily. You know
why. Sam„@kins is wrong. Guild
statrtics show that when peepers
marry non-peepers, few of their
children are peepers. It’s like
blue eyes ... a recessive inherited
characteristic. We can’t take a
chance on losing it.”

“That’s the Guild answer, Mr.
Powell, but I asked you. Are you
against it?”

“She’s a lovely girl, Gaily.
Sharp, smart, talented. That’s
why I’m against it."

“That’s why?”

“For her sake, not yours. Peep-
ers have married outside. The
marriages always fail because they
ar 't based on equality. Living
with a peeper makes an outsider
feel crippled. Puffy Wyg& would
end up hating you. loathing her-
self: no longer sharp, smart, tal-

ented, lovely. If you love her.
Gaily, don’t destroy her. Let her
go”

@kins came bouncing into the
room. “ It's a great discovery,
Powell. Sensational. They heard
me. My brains are hoarse, but,
by God, they heard me."

“ How many specific responses
did you get?"

“Well, none, but that's because
they're stubborn. Ashamed to be
peepers. Now, Gaily, what's with
you? Spit it out. I've got a
schedule."

Young Chervil hesitated. The
TP band crackled with blocks,
releases and adjustments. Finally
it came: “ Nothing in particular,
sir. Just a friendly call "

“Friendly? Then why that ex-
pression?"

After Gaily had evaded the
question and left, Powell painted
the picture. @kins was properly
apologetic, but unimpressed by
Chervil’s courage. Fifteen years
of happy marriage make a man
unsympathetic to the trials of
callow romance.

“He'll fall in love with a peeper
and live happily ever after. Now
what's with D' Courtney?”

Powell presented the problem.
Reich had definitely murdered
D’Courtney. Powell did not know
why or how; but one point was
clear and perplexing and would
have to be cleared up for Mr.
Peetcy. Reich had thrust the mur-
der weapon into D’Courtney’s

144

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

mouth and blown out the back
of his head with it. That was
virtually impossible with the
killer struggling with the daughter
on one hand and the victim on
the other . . . unless the victim
was not trying to defend him-
self.

"/ see. The answer is yes. He
was probably happy to die."

“How? Why?"

“He was regressing under emo-
tional exhaustion and on the verge
of suicide. He came here from
his home on Mars only because I
raised such a fuss that it was
easier for him to give in. Reich's
little gift must have come as a
welcome surprise ."

“Why was D' Courtney set on
suicide ?"

“If I knew, he wouldn't have
been. Reich turned my case into
a failure. I could have saved
:iP' Courtney."

“ You made any guesses why
D’ Courtney's pattern was crum-
bling?"

“Yes. He was trying to take
drastic action to escape a deep
guilt."

“Guilt about what?*’

“His child."

“Barbara? How? Why?"

“I don't know. He was fight-
ing symbols of abandonment, de-
sertion, shame, loathing, cow-
ardice. We were J*oing to work
on that That's all l know."

“Could Reich have figured and
counted on all this? That's some-

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

*

thing Mr. Peetcy is going to fuss
about."

“He might have guessed — im-
possible. He'd need expert help
to — ”

“Hold it, Sam. You’ve got
something hidden under that. I'd
like to get it if 1 can ...”

“Go ahead. I'm wide open."
“Easy now . . . Association with
festivity . . . Party . . . Conver-
sation at my party. Last month.
Gus T8, an expert himself, but
needing help on a similar patient
of his own, he said. If T8 needed
help, you reasoned Reich cer-
tainly would need help." Powell
was so upset he spoke aloud.
“Well, how about that, peeper?”
“How about what?”

“Gus T8 was at the Beaumont
party the night D’Courtney was
killed. He came with Reich, but
I kept hoping — ”

“Pres, I don't believe it. r ’
“Neither did I, but there it is.
Little Gus was Reich’s expert.
He pumped you and turned it
over to a killer. What price the
Galen Pledge now?”

“What price Demolition?”
@kins answered fiercely.

From somewhere inside the
house came an announcement
from Sally <£ : kins: “Pres. PI - **e.”
Powell loped down a to-
ward the phone alcove. H' iw
$$on’s face on the screen.

“Lucky I caught you, '• ‘>ss.
We’ve got six hours.”

“Take it from the top, $$on."

145

"Your Rhodopsin man, Dr.
Wilson %maine, * s back front
Callisto. Now a man of property
by courtesy of Ben Reich. I came
back with him. He’s in town for
six hours to settle his affairs, and
then he rockets back to Callisto
to live on his new estate forever.”

"Damn this phone. Who can
get a picture with words? Will
54 maine talk?"

"Would I call you if he would?
He’s grateful to Reich who (I
am now quoting) generously
stepped out of the legal picture
in favor of Dr. J^maine and
justice. If you want anything,
bring your grapnel.”

* A ND this,” Powell said, “is
our Guild Laboratory, Dr.
54maine. H

54maine was impressed. The
entire top floor of the Guild build-
ing was devoted to laboratory
research. It was a circular floor,
almost a thousand feet in di-
ameter, domed with a double
layer of controlled quartz that
could give graded illumination
from full to total darkness, in-
cluding monochrome light to
within one-tenth of an angstrom.

“I haven’t much time, Mr.
Powell,” 54maine said.

“Of course not. Very kind of
you to give us an hour. That may
be enough for you to help us.”

“Anything to do with D’Court-
ney?” 54 ma ' ne as ked.

"Who? Oh, the murder. What-

ever put that into your mind?”

“I’ve been hounded,” 54 ma ‘ nc
said grimly.

“We're asking for research
guidance, not information on a
murder case. What’s murder to
a scientist?”

54maine relaxed a little. “Very
true. You have only to look at
this laboratory to realize that.
And I won’t be peeped?”

“Dr. 54maine,” Powell said in
hurt tones. "I gave you the word
of a scientist.”

“Of course.” 54 ma * ne pointed
to a bench. “What’s all that?
Symbiosis?”

“Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Powell took 54maine’ s arm. To
the entire laboratory he broad-
cast: “ Stand by, peepers! Here's
a guy that's got to be buttered.
He specializes in visual physiol-
ogy and he's got information /
want him to volunteer. Kindly
fake all kinds obscure-type visuah
problems and beg for help."

They came by in droves. A re-
searcher, actually working on a
problem of a transitor which
would record the TP impulse,
hastily invented the fact that TP
transmission was monochrome
and humbly requested enlighten-
ment. A pair of pretty girls, en-
grossed in the infuriating dead-
end of long-range telepathic
transmission, demanded of Dr.
54maine why transmission of vis-
ual images always fell off ten
angstroms, which it did not. The

146

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

Japanese team, experts on the
Galen Node, center of TP per-
ceptivity, insisted that the Galen
Node was in circuit with the Op-
tic Synapse (it wasn’t within two
centimeters of same) and be-
sieged Dr. %maine with specious
proofs.

At 1 :00 p. m., Powell said : "I’m
sorry to interrupt, but your hour
is finished and you’ve got im-
portant business to — ”

"Quite all right,” y^maine in-
terrupted. "Now, my dear doc-
tor, if you would try a transec-.
tio'n of the optic — ”

At 2:00, a buffet luncheon was
served without interrupting the
feast of reason. Dr. ^maine,
flushed and ecstatic, confessed
that he loathed the idea of being
rich on Callisto. No scientists
there. He also confided to Powell
how he had inherited his estate.
Seemed that Craye D’Courtney
originally owned it. The old Reich
(Ben’s father) must have swin-
dled it one way or another, and
placed it in his wife’s name.
When she died, it went to her son.
Ben Reich must have had con-
science qualms, for he threw . it
into open court, and Wilson
J^maine somehow came up with
it.

"And he must have plenty more
on his conscience,” %maine said.
"The things I saw when I worked
for him! But all these financiers
arc crooks. You agree?”

"I disagree about Ben Reich,”

Powell replied, striking the noble
note. "I admire him very much.”
"Of course,” % ma > ne agreed
hastily. "After all, he does have
a conscience.”

Powell became a fellow-conspir-
ator and captivated y 4 mame with
a grin. "As fellow scientists we
can deplore: but as men of the
world we can only praise.”
“You do understand.” ^maine
shook Powell’s hand effusively.

At 4:00, Dr. % ma ’ ne informed
the polite Japanese that he would
gladly volunteer his most secret
work on Visual Purple, in effect,
handing on the torch to the next
generation. His eyes moistened
and his throat choked, with sen-
timent as he spent twenty min-
utes carefully describing the
Rhodopsin Ionizer he had de-
veloped for Sacrament.

At 5:00, the Guild scientists es-
corted Dr. %maine by launch to
his Callisto rocket. They filled
his stateroom with gifts and flow-
ers; they filled his ears with
grateful testimonials, and he took
off with the pleasant conviction
that he had materially benefited
science and never betrayed that
fine, generous patron, Mr. Ben-
jamin Reich.

T>ARBARA was in the living
room on all fours, crawling
energetically. She had just been
fed and her face was eggy.
"Hajaja,” she said. “Haja.”
“Mary! Come quick! She’s

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

147

talking! Barbara's talking!"

"No!" Mary ran in from the
kitchen. “ What'd she say?"

" She called me dada.”

“Haja," said Barbara.

Mary blasted him with scorn.
“ She said haja." She returned to
the kitchen.

“She meant dada. Is it her fault
if she's too young to articulate?"
Powell knelt alongside Barbara.
"Say dada. baby. Dada?"

"Haja," Barbara replied with
an enchanting drool.

Powell gave it up. He went
down past the conscious level to
the preconscious.

"Hello, Barbara ."

“You again?”

"Remember me? I’m the guy
that pries into your private little
turmoil down here. We fight it
out together .’’

“Just the two of us?”

"Just the two of us. Do you
know who you are? Would you
like to know why you're buried
way down here in this solitary
existence ?”

“Tell me.”

"You were born. You had a
mother and a father. You grew
up into a lovely girl with blonde
hair and dark eyes and a graceful
Ggure. You traveled from Mars
to Earth with your father and
you were — ”

“No. There’s no one but you."

“7’/n really sorry, but we must
go through the agony again."

“I don’t know what you mean,

but please . . . please! Just the
two of us alone together in the
darkness."

“ There was your father in the
other room, the orchid room, and
suddenly we heard something
...” Powell took a deep breath
and cried: “Help, Barbara!"

Sensation of bedclothes, Cool
floor under running feet and the
endless corridor until at last they
burst through the door into the
orchid room and screamed and
dodged the startled grasp of Ben
Reich while he raised something
to Father’s mouth. Raised what?
Hold that image. Photograph it.
Christ! That horrible muffled ex-
plosion. The worshipped figure
crumpling unbelievably. They
moaned and crawled across the
floor to snatch a malignant steel
flower from the waxen —

Powell found himself dragged
to his feet by Mary Noyes. The
air was crackling with indigna-
tion.

"Cant 1 leave you alone for a
minute ?”

“ What's the time, Mary?’

“9:40. I came in and found you
two kneeling there" Image of
angry fists.

“I know. But I got what I was
after. It was a gun, Mary. Anci-
ent explosive weapon. Clear pic-
ture. T ake a look ..."

“ Where'd he get it? Museum ?"

"I don't think so. I’m going to
play a long shot, kill two birds."

Powell lurched to the phone and

148

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

dialed BD-12,232. Presently,
Jeremy Church’s twisted face ap-
peared on the screen.

“Hi, Jerry.”

“Hello. Powell.” Cautious.
Guarded.

"Did Gus T8 buy a gun from
you, Jerry?”

“Gun?”

“Explosive weapon. XXth Cen-
tury style. Used in the D’Court-
ney murder.”

“No!”

“Yes! I think Gus T8 is our
killer, Jerry. Mr. Peetcy thinks
so too. I’d like to bring the pic-
ture of the gun over and check
if he bought it from you.” Powell
hesitated and then stressed the
next words gently: “It’d be a big
help, Jerry, and I’ll be extremely
appreciative. Extremely. Wait for
me. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

Powell hung up. He looked at
Mary. Image of an eye winking.
" That ought to give little Gus
time to hustle over."

“ Why Gus? When did Peetcy
come up with that notion? I
thought Ben Reich was — ” She
caught the picture Powell had
sketched in at @kins' house. “J
see. Church sold the gun to
Reich."

"Maybe. He does run a hock-
shop, and that's next thing to a
museum.”

“So you're playing T8 and
Church against each other."

“And both against Reich. We've
failed on the objective level .

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

From here on it's got to be peeper
tricks .”

“But suppose you can't play
them against Reich. What if they
call Reich in?"

“ They can't. We started Keno
Quizzard running for his life, and
Reich's out sdmewhere trying to
cut him off and gag him."

“ You really are a thief, Pres!"

“Why, thank you, Mary. That's
a lovely compliment."

XII

HPHE pawnshop was in darkness.

A single limited-radiation
lamp burned on the counter, send-
ing out its sphere of soft light to
a radius of two feet. As the three
men spoke, they leaned in and
out of the illumination.

“No,” Powell said sharply.
“You two peepers may consider
it an insult to have words ad-
dressed to you. I consider it evi-
dence of good faith. While I’m
talking. I’m not peeping.”

Not necessarily, T8 answered.
His gnome face popped into the
light. “You’ve been known to
finesse, Powell.”

“Not now. What I want from
you two, I want objectively. I’m
working on a murder. Peeping
isn’t going to do me any good.”

“What do you want, Powell?”
Church cut in.

“I know you didn’t sell the
gun to Gus. You sold it to Ben
Reich.”

T8’s face came back into the

149

.V^sSSerfe.*!

\ Wonderful news! This new policy covers everyone from infancy to age
\ 70— with cash benefits so surprising they should have instant opncal
\ for you. Think of it! When sickness Or accident sends you to the ho*-'
a \ pita), you will want this new Family Protection Plan. !( PAYS
\ S 100.00 PER WEEK— for a day, a month, even a year, or longer—
i,00 \ just as long, in fact, as il's necessary to stay in the hospital. What a
\ relief to know that you and your family could have this PROTEC-
! 0 ,o0\ TION so that precious savings may be safeguarded and thus
\ avoid going into debt! The money is paid directly to you— il’s
, 0 0-° n \ YOURS to use and spend as you wish. No strings attached—
^ 0 0.°° \ the company pays you welcome cash when you need it most for

.Sounds unbelievable — bu

holders in every sute, and with assets of ji 3,1 aft,
I as of January l, 1951.

o' V, '5«et»' -L tV.>»'T

i .ss"?“! of h" d «’*

Hdsp^iial'Oeparffnef

FOR A DAY, A WEEK, A MONTH, A YEAR,
\ OK EVEN FOR LIFE...

, memberofthe family may return to the hospital for sickness dr
, accident as many times in the year as necessary without pay-
additi ’

3* A DAY

IS ALB. YOU PAY

for this outstanding new Family Protection!

B rVaY^ e ^fot^ecce ** ,q d*?* ca-oce'-fiOvets® t cowd-v* dase.,„ . — — , —

.n 4 ,b f 0 ice so * r : c ,oA>f # eReC"' \ adult 18 lo 59 and for a E ev 60 w 70 only -I Vic a day. l or .bihlren

ft 1'"’ i" i .oh'' „ec>>'' . „i\ ^ c.rt \ up to 18 years, the cost is only l!/jc a day tor cadi child! Noun

H »W, ,.ie “ ,,,s '’ c ,\sc . w a" " VV'' \ rally ihis policy is issued onlylo families and individuals now

■ -A 1 wey ^b' c * n s „ o5 e "■ * gef \ i„ good Ve.llf.-o.herw ise the cos. svould he sty h, B h. Uut

.W** . - o* w n» <c ..o' „ tan c so \ once pro.ccied by this policy, you arc covered for hospital!-

-ol' V, '. c .i 0p .osc»rf>’ , -‘* .,yn* sicy V “ 0 V>n°. P V'a n \ 'annn lor abou. every sickneM and accidenr. Buell of

sv"*. Jtsssv. _ a r9° s ms 9°' ' ,«cn ’Soap' , y.U*' \ poficy are the full resources of the nationally lino

- ‘ "”64'“' \i>* ,n - 1 - "-a— 1 l -

150

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

10 DAYS FREE EXAMINATION

This is What $100" a Week
^ Can Mean to You When in the

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

151

light. "Then why’d you claim I
bought it?”

"To get you here for a talk,
Gus.” He turned toward Church.
"You had the gun. Jerry. Reich
came here for it. You did busi-
ness together before. I haven’t
forgotten the Chaos Swindle ...”

"Damn you!” Church shouted.

"It swindled you out of the
Guild,” Powell continued. “You
and Reich split close to half a
million between you on that. As
I recall, you offered your share to
the Guild for reinstatement ...”

"And you turned me down!"

"All I’m asking for is the gun,”
Powell said quietly.

“Are you offering a deal?”

"You know me. Jerry. Would
1 make a shady offer like that?”

"Then what are you. paying for
the gun?”

"You’ll have to trust me to do
the fair thing; but I’m making
no promises.”

"I’ve got a promise," Church
muttered.

"You’ll have to make up your
mind — trust me or trust Ben
Reich. Whet about the gun?”

Church’s face disappeared from
the light. After a pause, he spoke
from the darkness. “I sold no
gun. peeper, and I don’t know
how any gun was used. That’s my
objective evidence."

"Thanks. Jerry.” Powell smiled,
shrugged and turned again to
T8. “I just want to ask you one
technical question, Gus. Skipping

over the fact that you’re Ben
Reich’s accessory ...”

" Wait a minute, Powell — ”
"Keep it on the acoustical level,
Gus, and don’t get panicky. All I
want to know is how Guild con-
ditioning failed with you. You’re
a professional analyst and you
might be able to locate the flaw
in our processing before we break
you.” •

"Break me? For what?” The
calm assurance T8 found in Pow-
ell’s mind, the casual acceptance
of his ruin as an accomplished
fact, jolted the little peeper.

"You’d better start looking for
a good hockshop location. No,
yoq could probably do better with
a tea-leaf act. But while you’re
still a Guild member, I wish
you’d devote some attention to
your own case. How did we fail
with you? At what level? I’d ap-
preciate a report before you’re
dead.”

" What do you mean, dead?’
“Exiled. Expelled. Look at
Jerry. He’s a picture of yo* after
the next council meeting.”

“You 11 never prove anything.
You'll—”

“You little fool. Haven’t you
ever been at a protested trial?
Mr. Peetcy won’t be handling
your case. No, you stand b; fore
the board and T’sung-Hsai,
(‘/'kins, Joyce, Chevisance, Vigo,
Catzerie, Tudor Franion — all Ists
— start probing. I tell you, you’re
dead.”

152

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

"Wait, Powell!" The manne-
quin face was twitching with ter-
ror. “ The Guild takes confession
into account. When you get nuxed
up with a damned psychotic like
Reich, you identify yourself with
it. He came to me with a night-
mare about a man with no face.
He—"

"He was a patient?"

"Yes. That's how he trapped
me. But I’m out of it now. Tell the
Guild I’m volunteering every-
thing. Church is your witness . . ."

“I’m no witness,” Church
shouted. “You dirty squealer!
After Ben Reich promised — ”
“Shut up. You were crazy
enough to trust Reich. I’ll bust
him first. I’ll walk into court and
sit on the witness stand and do
everything I can to help Powell.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,”
Powell snapped. “You’re still in
the Guild. Since when does a
peeper squeal on a patient?”

“It’s the evidence you need to
get Reich, isn’t it?”

“Sure, but I’m not letting any
peeper disgrace the rest of us.”
“It could mean your job if you
don’t get him.’’

“I want it and I want Retch . . .
but not at this price. It takes guts
to hold to the Pledge when the
heat’s on. You ought to know.
You didn’t have the guts.”

“But I was an accessory!" T8
shouted. “You’re letting me off.
Is that ethics?”

“Look at him,” Powell laughed.

“He’s begging for Demolition. No,
Gus. We’ll get you when we get
Reich. But I can’t get him
through you. Don’t forget that
report.”

He left the circle of light, walk-
ed through the darkness toward
the front door. He had played the
entire scene for this moment
alone, but there was no action on
his hook.

As Powell opened the door.
Church suddenly called: “Just a
minute.”

Powell stopped, silhouetted
against the cold street light.
“Yes?”

“What have you been handing
T8?”

“The Pledge, Jerry. You ought
to remember it.”

“Let me peep you on that.”

“Go ahead.” Most of Powell’s
blocks opened. What was not
good for Church to discover was
carefully jumbled and camou-
flaged.

“I don’t know,” Church said
at last. “I can’t make up my
mind about you and Reich and
the gun. God kn«ws, you’re a
mealy-mouthed preacher, but I
think maybe I’d be smarter to
trust you.”

“I told you I can’t make any
promises.”

“Maybe the whole trouble with
me is that I’ve always been look-
ing for promises instead of — ”

At that moment, Powell whirled
and slammed the door. “ Get off

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

153

the floor ! Quick!" He vaulted
onto the counter. "Up here with
me!"

A queasy greasy shuddering
seized the pawnshop and shook it
into horrible vibration. Powell
kicked the light globe and extin-
guished it.

"Jump for the ceiling light
bracket and hold on. It's a har-
monic gun. Jump!" Church gasp-
ed and leaped up into the
darkness. Powell gripped T8’s
shaking arm. " Too short, Gus?
I’ll toss you."

He flung T8 upward and
followed, clawing for the steel
spider arms of the bracket. The
three hung in space, cushioned
against the murderous vibrations
enveloping the store . . . vibra-
tions that created shattering
harmonics in every substance in
contact with the floor. Glass,
steel, stone, plastic all screeched
and burst apart. T8 groaned.

"Hang on, Gus. It's one of
Quizzard's killers. Careless bunch.
They’ve missed me before .”

Destruction loomed up in the
little peeper’s. subconscious. Pow-
ell knew that this was his crucial
opportunity. T8’s hands relaxed
and he dropped to the floor. The
vibrations ceased an instant later,
but in that split-second Powell
heard the burst of flesh. Church
heard it too and raised steam for
a shriek.

"Quiet, Jerry ! Not yet. Hang
on!"

"D-did you hear him?"

" I heard. We're not safe yet.
Hang on/”

The pawnshop door opened a
slit. A razor edge of light shot
in and searched the floor. It
found a broad red and gray or-
ganic puddle, then blinked out.
The door closed.

“ They think I'm dead again.
You can have your hysterics
now."

" I can't get down, Powell. I
can’t step on . . ."

"I don't blame you." Powell
held himself with one hand, took
Church’s arm and swung him to-
ward the counter. Church drop-
ped and shuddered. Powell fol-
lowed him, fighting hard against
nausea.

“Did you say that was one of
Quizzard’s killers?”

“Sure. He owns a squad of
psycho-goons. They're Ben’s dep-
uties right now, though. Ben's
getting panicky."

"Ben Reich? But it was in my
shop. 1 might have been here."

“You were here. What differ-
ence did that make?"

“ Reich wouldn't want me
killed."

“ Wouldn't he?" Image of a
cat smiling.

Church took a deep breath.
Suddenly he exploded : "The god-
dam son of a bitch!”

"Don’t feel like that. .Wry.
Reich’s fighting for his life. You
can’t expect him to be too con-

154

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

siderate of anybody else.’'

“Well, I'm fighting, too. Get
ready, Powell. I’m going to give
you everything.”

1 FTER he finished with
■** Church and returned from
headquarters and the T8 night-
mare, Powell was grateful for
the sight of the urchin in his
home. Barbara D’Courtney had
a black crayon in her right hand
and a red crayon in her left. She
was energetically scribbling on
the walls, her tongue between Jier
teeth and her dark eyes squinted
in concentration.

“Baba!" he exclaimed in a
shocked voice. “What are you
doing?”

“Drawrin pitchith for Dada,”
she lisped.

“Thank you, sweetheart," he
said. “That’s a lovely thought.
Now come and sit with Dada.”
“No," she said, and continued
scribbling.

“Doesn’t my girl always do
what Dada asks?”

She thought that over. “Yeth,”
she said. She deposited the cray-
ons in her pocket, her bottom on
the couch alongside Powell, her
grubby paws in his hands.

“Really, Barbara,” Powell mur-
mured. “That lisping is beginning
to worry me. I wonder if your
teeth need braces.”

The thought was only half a
joke. It was difficult to remember
that this was a woman seated

alongside him. Slowly he probed
through the paralyzed conscious
levels of her mind to the turbu-
lent preconscious, heavily hung
with obscuring clouds, behind
which was the faint, quaint flicker
of light, isolated and childlike,
that he had grown to like. But
that flicker of light burned with
the hot roar of a nova.

“Hello, Barbara. You seem
to—”

He was answered with a brust
of passion that made him
scamper.

“Hey, Mary!” he called. “Come
quick!”

Mary Noyes popped out of
the kitchen. “You in trouble,
again?”

“Our patient’s on the mend.
She’s made contact with her Id.
Down on the lowest level. Almost
had my brains burned out.”

“What do you want? A chap-
erone? Someone to protect the
secrets of her sweet girlish de-
sires^”

“I’m the one who needs pro-
tection. Come and hold, my hand.”

“You’ve got both of yours in
hers.”

“Just a figure of speech.” Pow-
ell glanced uneasily at the calm
doll face before him and the cool
relaxed hands in his. ‘*Come in-
side with me.”

He went down the black pas-
sages again toward the timeless
reservoir of psychic energy, rea-
sonless, remorseless, seething with

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

155

the never-ending search for satis-
faction. He could sense Mary
Noyes cautiously following him.
He stopped at a safe distance.

"Hi, Barbara ."

Hatred lashed out at him.

"You remember me?"

The hatred subsided, to be re-
placed by a wave of hot desire.

"Pres, you’d better jet. If you .
get trapped inside that pleasure-
pain chaos, you're gone."

“ I'd like to locate something."

"You can't find anything in
there except raw love and raw

death, pure mindless instinct."

“/ want her relations with her
father. I want to know why he
had those guilt sensations about
her."

The furnace fumed over again.
Mary fled.

Powell teetered around the edge
of the pit like an electrician gin-
gerly touching the ends of ex-
posed wires. A blazing bolt
surged near him. He stepped aside
to feel a blanket of instinctual
self-preservation wrap him. He
permitted himself to be drawn

H

S

156

GAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION

1

down into a vortex of associa-
tions.

Here were tne somatic mes-
sages, cell reactions by the in-
credible billion, organic cries, the
muted drone of muscle tone, sen-
sory sub-currents, blood-flow, the
wavering superhetrodyne of blood
ph . . . all whirling and churning
in the balancing pattern that
formed the girl’s psyche. The
never-ending make-and-break of
synapses contributed a crackling
hail of complex rhythms.

Powell caught part of Plosive
image, followed it to the sen-
sory association of a kiss, then
by cross circuit to the infant's
sucking reflex at the breast. Her

THE DEMOLISHED MAN

mother? No. A wetnurse. Neg»-
tion. Minus Mother. Powell
dodged an associated flame of in-
fantile rage and resentment, the
Orphan’s Syndrome. He searched
for a related Pa . . . Papa . . „
Father.

Abruptly he was face to face
with his image. It was nude, pow-
erful, its outlines haloed with an
aura of love and desire.

Get lost. You embarrass me.
The image disappeared. Damn it!
Has she fallen in love with me ?

“Hi, spook.”

There was her picture of her-
self, pathetically caricatured, the
blonde hair in strings, the dark
eyes like blotches, the lovely
figure drawn into flat, ungracious
planes. It faded and the image
of Powell - Powerful - Protective -
Paternal rushed at him, torren-
tially destructive. The back of
the head was D’Courtney’s face.
He followed the Janus image
down to a blazing channel of
doubles, pairs, linkages and du-
plicities to — yes, Ben Reich and
the caricature of Barbara, linked
like Siamese twins. B linked to
B B & B. Benedictine & Brandy.
Barbara & Ben.

Half—

“Pres!”

A call far off, directionless. It
could wait. That amazing image
of Reich had to —

“ Preston Powell! This way, you
ass!”

“Mary?”

15 *

" This is the third time I’ve
tried to locate you!”

41 The third time?”

"In three hours. Please, Pres,
while I’ve got the strength.”

He permitted himself to wan-
der upward. The timeless, space-
less chaos roared around him.
The image of Barbara D’Court-
ney appeared, now a caricature of
the sexual siren.

"Hi, spook.”

In a panic, he plunged away.
Then the Withdrawal Technique
went into automatic operation.
The blocks banged down in
steady sequence, each barrier a
step backward toward the light.
Halfway up, he sensed Mary
alongside him. She stayed with
him until he was once more in
his living room, seated alongside
the urchin.

’’Mary, I located the weirdest
association with Ben Reich. Some
kind of linkage that — ”

Mary had an iced towel. She
slapped his face with it smartly.
He realized that he was shaking.

’’Only trouble is you aren't
working with unit elements.
You're working with ionized par-
ticles ...” He dodged the towel
and stared at Barbara. “My God,
Mary, I think this poor kid's in
love with me”

Image of a wistfully cockeyed
turtledove.

”1 kept meeting myself down
there."

” And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Why do you think you refused
to send her to Kingston Hospi-
tal?” she said. “Why have you
been peeping her twice a day since
you brought her here? Why did
you have 'to have a chaperone?
I’ll tell you, Mr. Powell ...”

“Tell me what?”

She stung him with a vivid
picture of himself and Barbara
D’Courtney and that fragment
she had peeped days ago . . . the
fragment that had made her turn
pale with helplessly violent jeal-
ousy and anger.

“You’re in love with her, and
the girl isn’t a peeper. She isn’t
even sane. I wish I’d let you stay
inside her mind until you rotted!”
She turned away and began to
cry.

“Mary, for the love of — ”

“Shut up.” she sobbed. “There’s
a message for you. F-from head-
quarters. You’re to jet for Am pro
as s-soon as possible. Ben Reich’s
there. They need you. Every-
body needs you. So why should
I complain?”

—ALFRED BESTER

CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH

15 !

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

TO INTRODUCE THESE DISTINGUISHED RECORDINGS OF

' 200 YEARS OF AMERICAN MUSIC"

THE AMERICAN RECORDING SOCIETY OFFERS Y.OU . . .

ONE OF THESE SUPERB 33'/ 3 rpm 10" long Playing UNBREAKABLE RECORDS

Prepared by the non-profit Oitson Muiical Foundation

Regularly $4.3 S

INDIAN SUITE

By EDWARD MacDOWELL. A
concert hall favorite since 1896.
this melodic suite Is based on
genuine Indian themes— legends,
festivals. 10" A.R.S-. recording.

2ND SYMPHONY

By WALTER PISTON. Winner of
New Yore Music Critics Circle
Award 1* ,4-48. this rhythmic
score has necomc a modern mas-
terpiece. 10" A.R.S. recording.

Since the last war, a great musical awakening
has electrified the music-loving world — a sudden
realization that the foremost music being written
today is American music— and. that American
composers have been writing important music
for the past 200 years!

Now. an outstanding non-profit institution
has embarked on a program of creating high-
fidelity recordings of 200 years of American
music! Every form of musical expression is in-
cluded in this program — symphonic, choral,
chamber works, folk music . . . music ot Amer-
ica at work and at play; music of America
growing, laughing . . . music born of the love
of liberty and the love ot fun, the love of good
living and the love of God. Whatever your
Castes — here is music for you!

HOW THIS MUSIC CAME TO BE RECORDED
Recently, the directors of the renowned Alice M.
Ditson Fund of Columbia University established
a substantial gram to create the non-profit Dit-
son Musical Foundation, whose sole purpose is
to record and release each month a new high-
fidelitv full-frequency recording of American
music, on Long-Playing records.

ARE THE RECORDS EXPENSIVE?

No, to the contrary. Because the Ditson Musical
Foundation made its recordings available at cost

to the American Recording Society (sole dis-
tributing agent for the Foundation's records)
they are priced below most L.P.’s of Comparable
quality — only $4.35 for 10" records and $4.95
for 12" records. The American Recording Society
Philharmonic Orchestra engages the finest avail-
able conductors and artists, and all recordings
are made with the latest high-fidelity equipment,
and pressed directly from a limited number of
silver-sputtered masters.

HOW THE SOCIETY OPERATES
Your purchase of either of the Long Playing
records offered above for only $1.00 does not
obligate you to buv any additional records from
the Society — ever! However, we will be happy to
extend to you the courtesy of an Associated,
Membership. F.ach month, as an Associate Mem-
ber, you will be offered an American Recording
Society recording by a famous American com-
poser, at the special Club price. If you do not
wish to purchase any particular record, you
merely return the form provided for that purpose.

FREE RECORDS OFFERED

With each two records purchased at the regular
Club price you will receive an additional record
of comparable quality ABSOLUTELY FREE.
However, the number of records which can be
pressed from silver-sputtered masters is neces-
sarily limited, so mail the coupon at once.

AMERICAN RECORDING SOCIETY, 100 AVE. OF THE AMERICAS, N. Y. 13, N. Y.

r

I

I

I

I

I

I enclose f 1.00. As an Associate Member tr the
Society, I will receive the Society's publication
which will give me advance nolice of each new
nonttily Society Long-Playing aclcction which I
nay purchase at the special Membership price of
only *4,95 for 12" records, *4.35 for 10" records,
plus n few cents for V.8. tax ami shipping.
However, I may decline to purchase any or all
Society rfcords offered. With each 5 recordings
i do purchase you will send me on additional
record ARSOT.T'TTCT.Y I'RKK.

GX-2

(Check one)

SUITE" n “2ntl SYMPHONY”
veil by Piston

Name

Address

City Zone .... Slate .

_C aim dian_Ad dross : OWEN SOUND, _ONTARIO

American Recording Society, Dept. 715. Ave. of the Americas, New York 13, N. Y.

O “INOIAN
by M

I

I

I

I

I

I

The Current GALAXY Science Fiction Novel . . .

Odd John

By Olaf Stapledon

"Odd John" was the nickname given this strange youth . . .
and odd he certainly was. With his incredibly gifted skills ond
his awesomely developed mind, he could have attained power,
fame, money — an entire nation or even the world!

But it would have been like a genius ruling an asylum of
imbeciles. For Odd John was not of the human race; he belonged
to the next stage of evolulion — Homo Superior!

He could not be the only one, he reasoned. There must be
others like himself. But where would he find them? And if he
did, would they agree to his plan to breed only among them-
selves ... to create the race that would some day replace Homo
Sapiens? And what would mankind, with his powerful weapons
ond unleashed fear, do to stop the threat?

Many authors have tried to write the story of Homo Superior
and failed — just as Pithecanthropus, describing Modern Man,
would find it an impossible job. But Stapledon succeeded! This
is THE masterpiece of superman stories, truly a great work of
science fiction!

★

The Next GALAXY Science Fiction Novel . . .

Four-Sided Triangle

By William F. Temple

A swiftly paced, rollicking, yet shrewdly thoughtful book-
length story of a machine that solves one distressing problem
. . . and creates dozens of others even more troublesome.

☆ ☆ ☆

The price is only 35c c copy (no postage or handling charge)
or send $2.00 for a full year (six issues) to . . .

GALAXY PUBLISHING CORP.

421 Hudson Street New York 14, N. Y.

160

What Strange Powers

Did The Ancients Possess?

CVERY important discovery relating
to mind power, sound thinking and
cause and effect, as applied to self-
advancement, was known centuries ago,
before the masses could read and write.

Much has been written about the wise
men of old. A popular fallacy has it that
their secrets of personal power and suc-
cessful living were lost to the world.
Knowledge of nature’s laws, accumulat-
ed through the ages, is never lost. At
times the great truths possessed by the
sages were hidden from unscrupulous
men in high places, but never destroyed.

Why Were Their Secrets
Closely Guarded?

Only recently, as time is measured; not
more than twenty generations ago, less
than l/100th of 1% of the earth's
people were thought capable of receiv-
ing basic knowledge about the laws of
life, for it is an elementary truism that
knowledge is power and that power
cannot be entrusted to the ignorant
and the unworthy.

Wisdom is not readily attainable by the
general public; nor recognized when
right within reach. The average person
absorbs a multitude of details about
things, but goes through life without
ever knowing where and how to acquire
mastery of the fundamentals of the inner
mind — that mysterious silent something
which “whispers" to you from within.

Fundamental Laws of Nature

Your habits, accomplishments and weak-
nesses are the effects of causes. Your
thoughts and actions are governed by
fundamental laws. Example: The law

of compensation is as fundamental as
the laws of breathing, eating and sleep-
ing. All fixed laws of nature are as
fascinating to study as they are vital to
understand for success in life.

You can learn to find and follow every
basic law of life. You can begin at any
time to discover a whole new world of
interesting truths. You can start at once
to awaken your inner powers of self-
understanding and self-advancement.
You can learn from one of the world’s
oldest institutions, first known in Amer-
ica in 1694. Enjoying the high regard
of hundreds of leaders, thinkers and
teachers, the order is known as the Rosi-
crucian Brotherhood. Its complete name
is the “Ancient and Mystical Order
Rosae Cruris,’ ' abbreviated by the ini-
tials “AMORC.” The teachings of the
Order are not sold, for it is not a com-
mercial organization, nor is it a religious
sect. It is a non-profit fraternity, a
brotherhood in the true sense.

Not For General Distribution

Sincere men and women, in search of
the truth — those who wish to fit in with
the ways of the world — are invited to
write for complimentary copy of the
sealed booklet, “The Mastery of Life."
It tells how to contact the librarian of
the archives of AMORC for this rare
knowledge. This booklet is not intended
for general distribution; nor is it sent
without request. It is therefore suggested
that you write for your copy to: Scribe

E. J.L.

RO SI CRUCIANS

{AMORC]

San Jose California

Make him say "You’re
LOVELIER THAN
EVER.’’ Don’t miss
this chance to make

dreams lose his heart.
Authentic Perfumes in
each glass vial! Enough
for 20 nights "On The

MOST AMAZING PERFUME OFFER

These ate the SAME, GENUINE, ORIGINAL perfumes that you've seen in Harper’s,
Vogue, Madamoiselle, Charm, Glamour, Seventeen and all the other leading fashion
magazines advertised to sell for as much as $3500

a bottle.

1

, me O'Clock
Shining Hour
Coour-Joi®
Black S^n
My Alibi

Sortilege

Gold Satin

Breathless
Midnight

1VJO ZP-CH OF

1, rvchran I"

• By Gouu»***

by Angelique
by Renew
b v Cigogne
by Angeuque
bv Charbert

’ by Fussy

TUSSY

Jorf 1 '

GOVBIEUI

UL OF THESE

|.(U llll'U-I

THESE EXCITING , ROMANTIC , GLAMOROUS

FAMOUS PERFUMES

product. This bargain offer is made so

$ ’

...j famous per-
w acquaint you with their
product. This bargain offer is made so
that you can try each one and then de-
I J cide which better suits your personality.
Naturally, all these wonderful perfumes
arc available at your local drug or de-
partment store in regular sizes at the